


Screams of Agony

by UselessLesbianLaughter



Series: Petit a petit, l’oiseau fait son nid [1]
Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Blood and Gore, F/F, Graphic Depictions of Torture, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 02:27:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 26,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9051613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UselessLesbianLaughter/pseuds/UselessLesbianLaughter
Summary: This is promising to be a dark fic my dears, so if you really are sensitive to content like this I advise you to not read this. However if you are fascinated by this or a somewhat literatural masochist like myself you are very welcome to join me on the emotional rollercoaster that this is going to be. I'm setting myself the goal of updating at least twice a week and if the times are good I might even be able to update daily. I am not yet sure how long this is going to be but I am going to say that this is going to get very dark but as always, a somewhat happy ending is promised.Now to actually summarise the plotline, Erin is kidnapped and tortured for information.





	1. Alba

**Author's Note:**

> As said in the summary, it will be a dark fic but I would still like to thank you for clicking on it and in advance for reading it and after, if you do find it worthy of leaving Kudos and comments, a special thanks for that  
> If you find yourself too sensitive to read this (or perhaps not just into this kind of stuff) I first of all would like to applaud you for knowing your limits and secondly would kindly advise you to read some of my other, much fluffier stuff or perhaps When It All Comes Down when you're sensitive to the violence and gore instead of a fic of a more angsty kind

 “Oh, goody-good, you’re awake.”

  A female voice, it was warm and bubbly.

 

 In those brief moments the world was a blur.

 Her eyes didn’t quite focus and her lashes seemed to be getting in the way of her vision.

 

 The lighting was too bright, only intensifying the dull throbbing in her head.

 She opened her eyes fully, finally, and her gaze shifted around the room.

 

  _Where am I?_

She was too afraid to ask the question out loud and unsure if anyone would answer.

 She appeared to be alone in the room for now. The walls were a singular shade of white, seemingly matching the ceiling and the floor.

 She was laying on something somewhat soft and scruffy. It didn’t feel pleasant.

 Her eyelids weighed heavy and so did her limbs as she attempted to lift her hand, only succeeding on the third try.

 

 That’s when the fear set in.

 

 She didn’t know where she was or how she got there. She didn’t know how to get out or if she ever would. Didn’t know why she was there or if she was alone, was she being watched, observed from some other room by some sick psychopath.

 

 With no conscious memory of the last night or how she had gotten to where she was now the woman looked around. The lack of detail in the room was maddening. The walls lacked colour, save for the painfully dull white and there was a singular door right across from her, which she somehow knew even without trying, was locked.

 There were no windows or furniture, unless you counted the old mattress Erin found herself laying on as furniture.

 It was abnormally quiet and the lack of sound alone was driving her insane, making her miss the constant rattling and small poofs, as Holtzmann called them, coming from the fore mentioned’s lab.

 

 In the moments before the door opened, Erin had time to wonder where said engineer was right now and hope that she or either of her other two coworkers were currently being held in a similar room for similar unknown reasons.

 

 A man, perhaps in his thirties or forties, with the hint of a dark beard on his chin and small eyes that were somewhere between grey and light blue, walked in, his tall figure appearing big in the rather small room, his dark apparel clashing in contrast with the walls and ceiling.

 His mouth was a small, straight line and there was no sympathy in his eyes and yet there was no obvious cruelty in them either. They were simply numb, as if staring into the abyss forever except there was no abyss.

 There was only Erin, sitting weakly on the mattress, with limbs still heavy and head still throbbing, the pain only worse than before and his eyes were directed at her.

 

 Erin wondered if the man wanted her to speak first or if it would, instead, make him mad and therefore rather dangerous in her current situation. It could really go either way and either way Erin risked angering a person who was currently in a far superior position to her.

 

 He let Erin calculate her chances in fear for a little more time before he finally spoke up.

 

 “You’re probably wondering where you are, yes?” Erin didn’t dare respond.

 “Are you not?” He asked again.

 

_He wants an answer._

Flashed through Erin’s mind, a thought equal parts terrifying and fascinating.

 Why did the man expect her to respond? What should she say? Should she give in and answer or save him the satisfaction? Which would be more dangerous in the short term? Which one in the long term?  
 This was not the proper time to get lost in her own thoughts.

  She had to decide, now. Answer or don’t. Answer this way or another. Be honest or not.

 

 “Yes.” She croaked. Her throat was sore and speaking only worsened her headache.

 The man nodded, pleased with the answer or not, it was impossible to tell looking at his features and posture. Erin remained skeptical.

 

 The man looked almost surreal, like a horrid dream creature or something out of an animated horror movie. He moved smoothly, as if gliding over the floor, as each tap that occurred when his shoe touched the hard, cold floor, echoed back in the room, a sound only enhanced by the pain between Erin’s temples.

 

 As the man said nothing, having moved close to Erin, looking down at her with cold, callous and yet emotionless eyes.

 Erin took a chance, hoping the fear growing every second in her guts didn’t show as much as she felt it did in her eyes.

 “What do you want from me?”  
 She was looking at the floor, avoiding eye contact, her words, which she tried to keep calm along with herself still sounding a bit too sudden in her ears and strange, as if it wasn’t her own voice speaking, as if she herself wasn’t present at all.

 “So harsh. Tsk, tsk, tsk, Erin. Play your cards right and we’ll let you go alive. If I were you, I’d start by fixing that attitude.” His voice was monotone, a bit low but were it not for the words he was saying it didn’t sound intimidating at all. He sounded exactly like the guy next door or someone you knew rather briefly, a familiar bartender or a distant cousin. He sounded so normal and casual and that, most of all, disturbed Erin.

 “To answer your question, it’s simple. We want information, everything you have on the paranormal, everything you have on the mayor, your coworkers, everything. And you’re here until we get it. You won’t be seeing me around a lot, Myrcella will occupy most of your days.” He smirked and his smile was as cold as any other of his motions, lopsided with slightly yellowing but straight teeth. “She’s not as nice as me. Expert in the field of torture and a professional psychopath. She doesn’t care if you live or die… or if you speak for that matter, she only wants you to suffer. A wonderful woman in my opinion, I have never met anyone with less compassion and less respect for the human life, myself aside. And Sasha is here to keep you alive so you don’t die before you can tell us anything. Yes, that should be all, any further questions?” The last word was not stretched out. Each word followed its natural length and his voice didn’t rise or fall once in his short speech.

 

 The information had left the physicist breathless, hoping it was all some very cruel joke or a terrifying dream, a hallucination here to haunt her. But it wasn’t. This was reality and Erin wished for nothing but a way out. She felt like a caged wild animal, helpless and prisoned.

 

 “Why?” She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t give him that pleasure. Though reading his expressions, the man probably simply would not have cared, a fact somewhat infuriating and somewhat comforting.

 What odd things the human mind could find comforting if pushed far enough.

 

 “That my dear Erin,” he said, lifting her chin with his palm so she was forced to look at him, look into his eyes so void of any compassion or care for anything what so ever that she was too afraid to look away “is none of your business.”

 

 With those words he let go of her face, stood straight with perfect posture, turned on his heel and walked away as casually as one would in the streets or any other everyday location.

 

 Erin was left staring after him, at the door he no doubt had locked after his departure.

 

 There were too many questions circulating in her mind and to most she wondered if she wanted an answer to, scientific curiosity be damned.


	2. Periculum in mora

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing is okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to dreamshapers-universe for being a lovely beta for this chapter and I hope everyone enjoys this, constructive critisism is always welcome by the way

She didn’t know.

 

She no longer knew what she did know.

Didn’t know how long she had been there. No clock in the room, no way to know. No movement or sound except for herself. Occasionally she mumbled something to herself, a gentle hum sufficed, to assure herself she was not deaf. It was too quiet.

Didn’t know where she was. How to get out of there. Worse even, she hadn’t asked about Holtzmann or Abby or Patty. Yes, it was quite clear to her, the fact her kidnappers, that’s really all she knew about them, that they had taken and were keeping her here, they probably wouldn’t tell her a thing about the other three yet it still would’ve been worth a try.

Would it have been though? She didn’t know those people but they clearly had no good intentions towards her, they could’ve responded with unimaginable torture. Or they could’ve answered the burning questions on her tongue, there was no way of knowing.

 

A few times in her solitude that seemingly stretched across eternity, not nearly as tempting when forced upon her, she considered that, perhaps, she would’ve preferred torture, no matter how gruesome, to this, as long as someone would finally come and join her in this room with walls too white, the bright lighting reflecting back from them and hurting Erin’s somewhat light sensitive eyes.

 

This was the first sign she noted on herself, a clear red flag on sanity starting to slip, slowly but surely. To wish torture upon yourself for the prize of human contact was clearly not something someone at full mental health would do yet this seemed to be the very human response to deprivation of human interaction, a reflex, human nature.

 

_Are we truly this self-destructive?_

The woman wondered, with time to wonder on her hands all too much.

She longed to know what time it was, what date and if it was day or night. How long had she been there? How long?

 

Words becoming repetitive in her head, too often followed by question marks, she wanted to go to sleep.

But she couldn’t, how could she, aside from all the dangers the much wanted sleep would’ve brought with itself the room was too bright and she was far too anxious to even close her eyes for a brief moment.

 

It was torture in itself, to lack information, the fear of the unknown, the worst fear of all.

 

How much did they know about her? How much had she let show within her stay? Was she being watched, were they listening to her slow march towards surrender to the urge to scream her lungs out? It would be irrational, it was clear her captors had her somewhere that sound couldn’t penetrate and it would only bring harm upon herself. Either they would hurt her or they would leave her alone into the unknown for longer and she didn’t know which thought she feared worse.

 

Her nails were clawing on the skin of her arm for quite a few minutes now, leaving hot, red skin, white trails following after them and fading quickly after the loss of contact. It wasn’t enough, the pain, the warm yet unpleasant sensation in her hand, it wasn’t sharp enough. Her skin was becoming numb and the coping mechanism wouldn’t suffice for much longer.

 

She stood up.

 

Glanced around the room, her vision was becoming slightly blurry in the white box, that’s what she described the room as now, a box, a prison too small for a human.

Her hands were shaking violently in fear now and she intertwined her fingers to stop it but it just wouldn’t leave her. Clenching her hand as fists didn’t help. Nothing did.

This was not the proper time to have a panic attack, she had much more urgent matters at hand and yet she didn’t know what they were or how to deal with them, if there was any way at all for her to deal with them, to fix anything.

 

_What if no one ever comes?_

_What if they leave me alone here forever?_

The questions were now appearing as bold, black text on the walls, circling around her, the ink never running out from the imaginary pen.

Hallucinating. Yes, she knew she was hallucinating and yet it didn’t make anything feel better.

 

“How long have I been here?” She asked, out loud, trying anything to shake the constant feeling of falling from her feet, trying to shake off the fear beginning to paralyze her body.

“Anyone? Please.” She was pleading, beginning, about to fall on her knees, fists pounding on the walls, her eyes dry as ever as the tears simply wouldn’t fall from them.

 

She wanted to close her eyes. Wanted to fall asleep and maybe never wake up again if this was her reality now. But she couldn’t close her eyes, they were wide open and burning, hurting from the light.

 

The door opened.

 

“I was wondering how long it would take you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, loves, comments keep me alive haha


	3. Per fas et nefas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where we have a look at Holtzmann's perspective

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a thousand thank you's to the lovely kate-berthold on Tumblr for being an awesome beta for this and the next chapter and as always, I hope everyone enjoys

“This isn’t normal, Abby,” the concern was fairly evident in the engineer’s voice, “this isn’t like Erin, to just disappear like this for several days with no trace.” 

  
Abby turned around and looked at Holtzmann with a disapproving, dismissing look.

 

“No. No, do not give me that look, I get that old Erin might have ran away when you knew her but that’s her years ago. That’s not my Erin. My Erin doesn’t disappear or run away without any notice.”

 

“Look, I get that you’re worried for her and all, Holtz, but there’s really no point. She’s probably just fine and dandy, playing hide and seek somewhere. Or maybe she got a better job offering, flew across the country, boom, Erin gone.” She sighed, calming herself and when she spoke again the bitterness had left her voice.

 

“Listen, maybe she just needed some time for herself. She used to do stuff like that all the time when we were in high school. And I get that that’s not,” she followed with air quotes, “ _ your _ Erin but it was her at some point so maybe, just maybe, she’s doing it again, I’m sure she’ll be back in a few days. She’s an adult, Holtz, she can probably handle herself.” She sighed again.

 

“And if you’re really that worried, go file a missing person’s report or something, I’m sure the cops will have lots of fun tracking her down.

 

“Abby, how are you so calm?” The engineer almost shouted, “Erin could be in serious danger right now and we’re just sitting around doing nothing.” Her voice was starting to fill with desperation at this point.

“Listen Holtz, I get that you’re worried and all but I really think you’re overthinking this…”

  
“Overthinking? Abby! If anything you’re not taking this seriously enough.” The woman was practically shouting at this point.

 

“Holtz, it’s been three days. Just three. You’re making a big deal out of nothing. Erin will show in her own time, I promise she’ll be back in less than a week.”    
Sure, Abby was getting worried herself but past experience had taught her not to freak out too soon when it came to matters directly related to Erin.

 

“Fine.” Holtzmann turned around, practically marching towards the door.

 

“Holtz, where are you going?” Abby sighed yet again.

 

“To the police.” The engineer replied without turning around, closing the door behind her fairly loudly.

 

Abby looked after her as Patty walked into the room. 

“What was that about?” Patty asked.

  
“Holtz thinks something’s wrong with Erin.” Abby answered, her voice tired.

  
“And you don’t?” The older woman questioned.

  
“Nope. She disappeared like this all the time when we were younger.” 

A few moments of silence followed.

 

“What if Holtzy’s right though?” 

 

Abby turned around, looking at the woman who had just asked the question she’d been trying to push far back in her mind out loud. She shook her head.

 

“Then I don’t know what to do.” She sat down and let her head fall to the table.

 

Patty was left to comfort the woman as Holtzmann was already half-way to the mayor’s office, having reconsidered on her path and figuring the mayor, though useless more than often, might be more useful in the current situation than the NYPD, who probably wouldn’t really care what a random woman who just walked in had to say about a supposedly missing person. And if the mayor wasn’t intending to be useful, he could be bribed. Jillian knew certain light-fearing things the man probably wouldn’t want the press to know.

 

The engineer was truly getting anxious, more and more with each passing moment, this unshakable crawling, itching feeling under her skin she just couldn’t get rid of, even if she would’ve tried. 

Not that she would’ve dared to try. 

 

Because if her suspicions were correct… she’d rather not think of that.

 

Knocking on the door of the office heavily, having somehow slipped past the security guards, she simply took the liberty to open the door herself, clearly interfering with something.

The baffled faces of the officials would’ve amused her were it not for the reason she was there.

 

“Miss, I’m afraid you are interrupting a rather important meeting, have you made an appointment?” One of the officials asked, getting over his initial shock, sounding as stern as he could manage and Jillian had time to wonder if he always talked like that to sound more official or was he simply attempting to be intimidating right now and if so, did he realize he was failing at it? Frankly, she didn’t care.

 

“No, I haven’t, and I don’t plan to. Now either I’ll wait outside until you finish your fancy-schmancy meeting and you will see me then or we are talking right now.” She seemed taller than usual and the usual joking tone was gone from her voice.

 

“Miss, do we need to call the police?”

  
“No need, I promise I’ll be nice if you,” she pointed her gaze at the mayor “agree to talk immediately after this, it’s urgent. Yes, it is necessary.” She loosened up ever so slightly. “Or, I mean, you can call the cops, I’m sure they’d love to hear about you and yo-”

 

She was cut of by the mayor himself.

 

“Okay, fine. We’ll talk. Now could you please maybe at least wait outside ‘til we finish this meeting?” The man sighed deeply.

  
Jillian smiled, “Gladly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know it's getting old, and I'm running out of witty ways to say I really really appreciate all your comments and any forms of feedback but I really do so be sure to leave them to make a certain writer really really happy haha, god I hope this isn't getting very annoying for ya'll


	4. Dulce bellum inexpertis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myrcella just isn't good with introductions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is starting to get interesting... hopefully

“Save the small talk, you know my name, I know yours and I think you know why I’m here, and if you don’t you are soon to find out, it’s not rocket science.” Her voice was casual with the slightest hint of arrogance, as if she and Erin were old friends from high school, catching up after years and she had done slightly better in life.

Her hair was a wild mess of purple curls, flowing in every direction possible, some strands falling on her face as she moved, getting loose from the red cloth tied around her head. Her arms seemed strong and muscular, somehow oddly fitting her thin yet tall frame. The outfit was tamer than the woman’s hair, mostly consisting of black that matched her eyes and the bit of eye shadow evident above them.  Bright red lipstick vibrant on her lips, she looked like someone not quite at full sanity yet definitely not dangerous. The polish on her long nails matched her lipstick exactly, her very well planned out make up clashing with the insanity of the messy hair, in which the purple took different shades, some lighter, most darker. She looked around Erin’s age, perhaps a little bit younger. Her skin was tanned and creamy, yet not very dark.

  
“What do you want from me?” Erin struggled to subtly move further away from the woman on the mattress in the corner of the room, seemingly failing.

Sure, she didn’t look dangerous but Erin wasn’t stupid enough to assume on looks. Yes, her reflex to attempt to move away in a small, locked room was naïve, perhaps foolish but Erin herself was no fool. 

  
“But darling, you already know that, don’t you?” Her voice was steady, unnervingly calm, rising in with the last words to emphasize the questioning tone in her voice, “Now, I advise you to cooperate… I’m just kidding, the more you resist, the more J will let me put you through and honestly, what could I want more?”

  
“How long have I been here?” The physicist croaked.

 

“Now, that is none of your business, is it now? Rhetorical question.” She shook her head and trailed her index finger along Erin’s jawline as if inspecting a product, a piece of meat at the grocery store and Erin winced away, apparently portraying enough humor in her movements to make the other woman laugh to herself for a moment. 

 

She laid her hand on Erin’s shoulder, not gently, more of a painful jolt than a friendly pat. 

“Ah, we’re gonna have a good time, aren’t we?” when Erin didn’t respond she fake pouted at her and shook her head, “Well, I am, anyways.” The laughter disappeared from her face.

 

Erin couldn’t make a run for it. She couldn’t really move in any direction without taking a major risk. Couldn’t stay still without taking around the same amount of risks. She was trapped. Helpless. Like a caged animal. 

 

The human mind is not used to something like this. It’s used to always finding a way out, it is a necessary instinct for survival. But what does the mind do when it has no way out? 

It either becomes delusional, pretending that it knows a way out of each and every situation, making problems seem surreal. Or it panics, just like the mind of a trapped wild animal. Erin had not reached either of those stages yet but as an intellectual she was very much aware this was where her mind was drifting. 

 

The woman took her chin in a firm grip, not letting go against Erin’s minor struggles, clearly observing her, already aware she was afraid to fight back. She was inspecting her. 

Erin wondered if she was estimating how much she could take. Truly, how much  _ could _ she take? She didn’t know that about herself so how could someone else know something like that about her? Could they? Yes, they could and Erin knew that fairly well. But could her current companion? There was no real way to know.

 

Technically she could fight her. She could feel the anger starting to bubble inside of her, filling her lungs so she felt like she couldn’t breathe if she didn’t attack something right away.

She could fight, tackle the woman to the ground, bite and claw and punch like a wild animal, try to make a run for it. She was strong enough. The woman was taller than her but Erin wasn’t weak. She’d taken self defense classes, plenty of them. She fought ghosts for a living and the proton packs had made her arms strong, the bar fights she’d gotten into only adding to her tactic.

For a moment she truly believed she could fight her, would fight her, would win, make a run for it. Anger was boiling inside of her and there was a near-murderous glint in the glare she had directed at her capturer. 

 

_ No. _

 

She wasn’t that stupid. The fire died out in her eyes, only partly. She felt more weak than angry.

 

Where would fighting lead her? The woman had probably locked the door after her and besides, she probably wasn’t alone. They were probably being watched right now. And she didn’t know this place, nothing more than the white room, didn’t know where she was or how to get out. Fighting wouldn’t lead her anywhere or to anything. At least not to anything she wanted.

 

“Shall we go then?”

  
“Where are you taking me?”

  
“Patience now, dear. Don’t you like surprises?”  
  
_No, I fucking don’t. People with anxiety don’t like surprises and I definitely am not interested in getting a surprise from you._ She wanted to say, fortunately smart enough to keep her mouth shut. 

 

“Now, are you going to come peacefully or would you do me the pleasure of resisting, it’s always more fun that way?” The woman seemingly questioned.

 

Erin wiped all emotion from her face as best as she could. She would not give in, wouldn’t give the woman what she wanted. She stood in surrender and let the woman,  _ what was her name, Mercalla, Mercilla, Myrcalla, something like that,  _ sigh and tightly grip her arm, half leading, half dragging her outside of the white room, into a monotonous, near monochromatic hallway composed of grey metal doors and walls that seemed to be impenetrable. 

 

She shoved Erin in through one of the doors, not caring how bad the fall hurt her knees or palms. Erin felt a foot dig heavily into her flesh from the side in a brief moment, a movement that made her groan in pain out of reflex, the flash of pain radiating through her body. 

 

It was an indication for her to stand up.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The same procedure as last end note, Miss Sophie?"  
> "The same procedure as every end note, James."
> 
> Comments are still what I live on, please leave them cause I, as a hypochrondriac, currently think I'm dying so that's fun


	5. Video sed non credo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erin gets a visit from her past demons... and this is just the beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay fam, do you know how much writing I have done in the past 24 hours? I finished this chapter, I uploaded another one shot, I wrote a few lines of other books and oh yeah, I wrote the first 7,052 words of my new novel's manuscript's first draft... Sleep? What's that?  
> Anyways, I really hope ya'll enjoy this chapter and I hate to beg but please do leave feedback and comments cause it really matters A LOT.  
> Oh, and thank you holtzmeup from Tumblr, thank you  
> Oh and if you're claustrophobic and stories affect you a lot this may be uncomfortable for you to read but it's not very gory yet

The door was slammed shut behind her before she had any time to turn around. She stood, expecting to find some sort of elaborate torture device facing her, something medieval and gruesome. Instead she was met with a cold metal wall, surrounding her. An attempt to stand up fully only led her to hitting her head in. The room wasn’t big enough for her to stand up in. It was a box rather than a room, pitch black and wherever she looked, wherever she reached she was met with a hard wall.  
  
 Unable to stand she sat, drawing her knees in, enveloping them in her arms, remembering.

 

  _8 years old._

_She is shoved into the closet forcefully by a tall, strong figure.  
 “Maybe this will teach you a lesson about lying.” It sounds like thunder, like a big, aggressive dog barking and the little girl doesn’t understand why she is treated this way. _

_It’s a dark and scary place for someone as young as her. Crying, she bangs on the wooden walls around her, small wrists getting scraped as she does, begging for the attention of someone, she wants out but all she can do is sob._

“No.” Her voice says, panicked. She is almost surprised to realize her voice sounds mature and grown, not like the cry of an 8 year old.

 

  _No._ This isn’t the closet again. She’s not a child anymore. She isn’t going to cry and scream like one. In spite of her thoughts the woman is now sobbing into her knees, rocking back and forth, making herself as small as possible as panic washes over her body like the waves of a cruel ocean, taking complete control over her. It’s as if she’s underwater, at the mercy of the currents, unable to breathe, unable to move at her own will. It feels like she is falling off a cliff forever, her feet standing no steady ground.

 

 At the very back of her mind she knows this is simply a panic attack. She ignores the thought.

 

 It’s as if the walls are closing in on her and the lack of sound is maddening. How long has she been here? It could be minutes or it could be hours, she has lost track of time, enveloped in her sobs.

 

 It tires her, the crying, the panic and despite herself, despite her fear of shutting her eyes she feels them slipping closed, the fatigue washing over her like a heavy yet warm wave in the same ocean of panic and cruelty. She’s falling asleep, slowly but surely.

 

Jerked awake, she stares in confusion towards the source of light that quickly fades, leaving her soaking wet and cold.

 

 “No sleeping.” The voice comes down like thunder and Erin forces her burning eyes open. She wraps her arms tighter around her small frame. Dripping icy water she gets a new found sense of how cold the room really is. The only sound is the splotching of her clothes, something equally disgusting and calmingly familiar.

 

In the dark she sees the fading figure of Holtzmann. Vivid and clear, the woman is wiped away by an imaginary wind. Erin turns around frantically, eyes opened wide, chasing the hallucination, left empty-handed. She’d honestly go through a metal wall right now to get to Holtzmann. To get home. No, to get away. Getting away would be enough.

 

 She’s clawing on the walls now, banging until her fists are bleeding, crying, screaming, anything to get someone’s attention, anything to be let out. She begs and prays and rams herself into the wall, in delusion that she might somehow be able to break out of the box that prisons her. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knows there is no real way out unless she is let out but that doesn’t stop her from struggling and screaming, trying to punch through the walls, only left with hurting wrists and knuckles, her desired freedom seeming to slip away more and more with each passing second, each passing minute, each passing hour, she has no knowledge of time left. It’s driving her crazy.

 

 She’s trashing around, elbows bruised, anything that can be punched with _is_ punched with. She eventually falls down in exhaustion, too tired and weak to keep struggling against the inevitable. Once she feels her eyes falling shut she forces them open, scared of the cold water hitting her skin again, her clothes still not dry from the last bucket. She’s shivering.

 

 Her eyes are burning, eyelids heavier than ever and suddenly the cold, hard floor becomes a rather appealing sleeping place. She tries so hard to fight it, dragging her eyelids open time and time again. And yet despite all her efforts she eventually allows them to slip closed, relief lasting a brief few seconds until the door is opened and she is dragged out forcefully by strong hands, the dim lighting hitting her eyes still too bright in contrast.

 

 “What the fuck did I say about now falling asleep?” The voice barks at her, coming through layers of sleep, echoing slightly in her ears.

 

 When the first fist came in contact with her face she could think of two things, no more, no less. One, she tasted blood, probably not a good sign. Two, she had never wanted to fall asleep more in her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope ya'll enjoyed and I hope this is still interesting and you like it and feel free to leave any kind of feedback... Well, not just random cussing at me, that'll be pointless but constructive critisism is always welcome and so is positive feedback, it keeps me motivated and is honestly my life blood sometimes haha  
> So yeah, I'll keep updating this and Video Diary until they are done, don't worry, and the one-shots (one of them being a request) will be finished and more short stories will come along but if I start uploading less than usual please know that it's just because I am really busy with my book (and life haha)  
> Sunshine to ya'll or whatever kinda weather ya like!


	6. Scio me nihil scire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing: the Healer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, my apologies for the much less frequent updates, life gets busy, loves  
> Secondly, many thanks to @Qym for beta-ing this chapter and being an excellent critique partner  
> And lastly, I hope you enjoy this and I truly do hope this has been and continues to be at least a somewhat enjoyable read

 “Oh good. You’re awake. Sorry about M. She’s a little… aggressive.” The young voice giggled nervously. She sounded rather kind, a British accent evident in her words.   
  
 Erin felt piece of cotton being dabbed gently on her skin, evoking an unpleasant buzz under her skin each time it made contact. She could feel the soreness in her chest, the throbbing in her head as her heart sped up, pounding against her ribcage. She was gasping for air, each breath met with a wave of pain.

 

 “Easy now. Please calm down, I’m just here to help,” she said, a hand stroking Erin’s hair.  
 “Who are you?” Erin’s voice was hoarse as she opened one eye, the other one sealed as any movement with it was painful enough to seem impossible.

 “Sasha. I’m just here to patch you up. Sorry about M. I don’t really… She doesn’t really listen much when it comes to orders, and I’m not at the proper level of authority to even give out any orders at all. I’m just a healer.” She said, her tone implying two words: _I’m sorry,_ words rushed.

The girl had strawberry pink hair, as much as Erin could see with one eye. It was curly and fell far past her shoulders neatly. She was wearing a sweater several sizes too big for her petite frame, which made it mandatory for her to constantly roll up her sleeves. Her eyes were sky blue. _Like Holtzmann’s_. Erin almost sobbed at the thought, the sadness an ache in her body, tears she didn’t let drop burning her eyes, her lip trembling slightly as she glided her tongue over it, finding nothing but crustiness and the slight metallic taste still lingering on them.

 

_Sasha,_ Erin thought.

 

 “Why are you doing this? Being nice to me?” She croaked.   
 “I’m… I’m just a healer. I’m not meant to be talking to you. I might get caught.” She swallowed and took a deep breath.   
 “I should go.” Was that fear Erin detected in her voice?

 

 The girl stood from her knees, taking something with her that Erin could only deduce was a medicine kit and rushing towards the door, turning on her heel before she completely reached it.

 “I’m sorry,” she whispered, Erin only half sure she actually said anything at all. The girl practically ran out the door, hair jumping up and down on her back slightly.

 

 Erin groaned as she attempted to move, giving up after a few more eye squints and pained whimpers. She sucked in air through her teeth. Back where she began, she realized. The walls seemed almost comforting in their blinding brightness now. She wondered how long she had been out. There was an odd sense of calmness. She hadn’t given up so soon, had she? This didn’t even feel like her own body anymore. This didn’t feel like her life, didn’t even feel like reality, actually.   
  
 Far too tired to cry she simply lay there, considering her situation, blank expression in her eyes. She knew she couldn’t give up so soon. _I’m not giving up, I’m not, I’m not, I’m…_

 

 This was when she realized how empty she felt inside, metaphorically but also physically. Her hunger was bitterly strangling her, every last muscle in her body feeling weaker than ever and yet still sore and stiff. Hunger- it was suffering as any, the only difference being that the only indication of it was the anguish in her eyes. As much of her body as she could see, it was clear why moving was hard, but the gaping feeling in her guts was something only she herself could truly feel and understand.

 

 Her feet were warm but not the cozy, comfortable kind of warm. It was rather a concerning hot buzz in them, not quite burning, no, not painful simply disturbing. She could feel her pulse throbbing all over her body, a metronomic beat that echoed in her chest, between her temples, everywhere, cut off from the outside world. Maybe the outside world couldn’t hear it, but Erin did.

 

_Too loud._

 

 Two words, before she slipped out of consciousness again.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 When she woke, she was no longer in the comfort of the familiar white walls. It wasn’t the small cage, which was the only way it could be described for Erin who was desperately trying to keep it from melting into her childhood closet and basement all together.

 

 Ropes. They dug into her hands, veins throbbing as they were tied too tight around her wrists. There was something surrounding her, darkness, light shining through it somehow. Fabric, she realized, not surrounding her but simply her head.   
  
 She tried to free her hands, struggling against her ties. Fear was rising from her guts, filling her lungs, she was breathing fear not air. Hands shaking in their bonds. She didn’t dare scream. It was the anguish of not knowing.   
  
 The bag was yanked from her head, discarded on the floor and Erin weakly lifted her head, opening the one eye she could, the other one probably sealed shut for a while, the pain surrounding it a dull one by now. She faced her captor, eyes tearing up. How had her life come to a constant contemplation whether to risk her life resisting or do the same by not resisting?

 

 The woman smiled briefly before walking over to the chair Erin had found herself tied to. Her hands dug into the brunette hair, which was starting to get some of its natural curl back, and Erin could feel her neck falling backwards, the ends of her hair hurting not quite as much as the rest of her body.

 

 An involuntary gasp left her lips.

 Her face was now inches away from the other woman’s, eyes gone blank, tired under the intense glare of her captor.

 

 She could smell iron, and something sticky had dried on the robes she was in, quite sure they weren’t her own clothes but unable to look down. Her lips were slightly parted, chapped. Her tongue was starting to dry as she tried to will herself into not thinking of water, not thinking of the way it felt in her mouth, not the way she longed for it right now. She tried not to think how she wished she could take a shower, wash everything, all of what had happened off of her skin, forget it forever. She just wanted away.

 

 The woman let go of her hair, letting her head fall, chin hitting her chest.

 

 “You’re going to tell me everything you know about the Ghostbusters.” The voice echoed.

 “I’m not going to tell you anything.” She spat, surprising, scaring herself with her boldness.

 “Oh you will.”  
 “Well, what if I don’t?”  
 “The question is not if or not you will speak, it is when you will do it. Entirely up to you though a friendly suggestion would be for you to do it sooner rather than later. All in the best interest of your own health. Now, because I’m nice, I’m going to give you a chance to talk right away.”

 “Fuck you.” The anger that had been building up was becoming less and less manageable with each passing moment.  The woman laughs at Erin who’s sending her a dirty glare. She puts all her strength into pulling away from her restraints, the chair only lifting from the ground slightly and falling right back. Erin grunts, her eye twitches barely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave feedback because the writer is a Feedback Vampire (and also will be very grateful)


	7. Audere est facere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, so terribly sorry for the lack of updates as of late, I have been very busy with my novel and with life in general (seasonal depression isn't too fun either). Hope you'll forgive me haha  
> And many, many thanks to the great, wonderful, and of course, absolutely fabulous @ChewieDaniels for going over the chapter and beta-ing.  
> Alright loves, hope you enjoy!

“She’s been like this all day.”

 “Should we talk to her?”

 “Abbs, maybe she’s right, it’s weird, Erin wouldn’t just disappear like that.”

 “Damn it, I know. I know, okay?”

 

 The muffled whispers died down as Holtzmann spoke from across the room.

 “You know I can hear you guys, right?” A few mumbled swears in response, mostly from Abby.

 “Hey, sorry, baby. We just worried ‘bout you.”

 “Hmm? Worried about me? Me, the very much not missing, not been gone for a week Holtzmann? Truly, makes sense.” The blonde replied sharply, not looking up from her computer screen.

 

 “Listen, I know you’d like to think that Erin’s on some spiritual journey in the Himalayas or some shit right now but I’m too busy actually trying to find her to try and believe in that crap. She’s missing. Do you even get what that means? She could be dead for all we know!” She added, flinching at the loudness of her voice. She could feel a knot forming at the back of her throat when she thought about that last sentence and what it truly meant. She let her head fall on the table, mumbling the rest from there.

 

 “Erin Gilbert, the Erin Gilbert, is missing and you two are choosing to just sit around, doing nothing. Look, all I’m saying is… You two? Go ahead. Do that. Whatever. But I’m gonna try to find her. If there’s still anyone to find at all. And I really don’t get how you can be so calm about all this.” She finished.

 

 “Holtzy, we’re not. Yeah, this is weird but if we wanna help Ez we gotta work together.”

 “So you spend days just ignoring the whole situation and now you wanna work together? I’ve marched into three meetings this week. I haven’t slept a single hour because I’ve been researching and trying to convince officials that this is serious. Heck, I tried to convince you guys it was serious.” She slid her fingers into her hair and shut her eyes tightly, shaking her head.

 

 “Look, I’m glad you’re finally coming to your senses. I really need the help. Desperately. But it really would’ve been nice of you two to not just blatantly ignore Erin going missing. I could’ve used your help much earlier on, okay? Just…” She rose her head, opened her eyes and nodded.

 

 There were bags under her eyes and the messy hairdo was only a brief telling of how intense the past week had been. The few hours she’d slept had been nightmare-fueled and she always woke terrified. Quite frankly, she didn’t know when she’d last eaten. It might have been worth it, she thought, glaring in horror at what stood on the computer screen in front of her.

 

 The other two carefully approached her, the apologies they uttered so clearly unnecessary. Holtzmann wasn’t mad at them. And what good would apologies do Erin?

 

Six days, 4 hours, give or take a few minutes. Too long.

 

 The trips to the mayor’s office, the NYPD, the interrupted meetings and disturbed sleeping hours hadn’t been for nothing. There was a team assigned to the case now. Amateurs, Holtzmann thought of them. No matter how much experience they had in the field they would never know Erin as she did. And those who didn’t know her couldn’t find her. The problem was, Holtzmann wasn’t so sure she herself, knowing Erin through and through and yet not at all, would be able to track her down. Not with this little information.

 

 And yes, the blonde was quite aware hacking into government sites was illegal and probably had a punishment of some kind in store for her were she to go through with her plan. But she had to try this. It wasn’t much. It wasn’t enough. That’s why she needed more and the one thing this was, perhaps, theoretically, maybe, was an opportunity to acquire more. More data. More information. More people. More.

 

 And even though it wasn’t enough it was really all she had. So she had no other option but to go through with it. The thought terrified her and in some sick sense perhaps even excited her. She pointed at the computer screen for Abby and Patty to see.

 

 The two shared a look.

 

 “Holtzy… Did you-”

 “Yup.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing has changed, I am still a feedback vampire


	8. Dum spiro spero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it finally is, chapter 8. Has it been a long wait? Yes. Am I sorry? Also yes. But, finally, I fulfilled my writerly duties and delivered, of course with a bit of assistance from the lovely interminatis-paradoxum from Tumblr who did the beta reading.  
> As always, enjoy! (and I say that in the most twisted sense since this chapter features a full-on torture scene, also trigger warning on that, if you have problems with water or drowning, I advise you to approach this carefully)

“How long has it been? A week? Six days? Five? Does it matter? You’ve had nothing to drink, save for your own blood in all this time. I’m surprised you haven’t collapsed from it yet. I’d say it’d be quite impressive, weren’t it for the fact that you passed out from other factors. So, my dear, care to trade a bit of your mind for a glass of nice, fresh water, may I remind you that you probably need it to live?” The woman made sure to drag out her words when describing the transparent liquid in the glass she was holding yet her voice went in through one ear and out from the other. 

 

Erin sat, shoulders hunched, tongue dry as sandpaper. Her eyes reflected less of the apathy buried deep inside and much more of the hunger, the thirst. Her own body and human instincts were failing her. As much as she wished she could say giving up wasn’t an option for her, it was, had been for days now. And fuck, it was tempting. The image of blonde curls and yellow goggles haunting her memory was one of the few remaining things that kept her from spilling everything. 

 The simple things were what somehow managed to keep her going. She’d imagine taking her first sip of coffee once she got out of here, fully aware the day might never come. She’d dream of sleeping in her own bed, the simple memory of sheets and pillows sweet as candy compared to cold, hard floor. A will to live composed of little flashes of the life before and the smallest joys of it, how pathetic, how human.

 

Who’d think it’d boil down to this, a last resource for a broken woman masked as the smallest sparks of hope hidden in the simplest of positive memories, no, simply memories from the time before. Anything would do, the bad, the good, it didn’t matter. She’d come to miss struggling with the little things, the small pains and the minor problems. Now pining over Holtzmann or having to do paperwork felt like a luxury, a desired privilege just out of her reach. How had it happened so fast, she wondered. 

 

Another thing that disturbed her a tad too much was how much she missed seeing the sunlight. Just the general way the sun rays would cascade onto the ground in any formation, what wouldn’t she sacrifice for only a glimpse of it now. Even though she had matters far more important at hand, matters resembling staying hydrated and not starving to death, yet she missed the fucking sun most.

 

Why was she even trying? Her captors had made it more than clear there was no point, resistance was futile and would only make the situation worse for the physicist. Worse than her current situation. Erin dreaded to even imagine what that would be like.

 

And yet, she remained silent. Why? Because this wasn’t just about her. In fact, it was barely about her, maybe not at all. In the past week she had been stripped of near everything she once had had. Her dignity. Her life. The smallest will to live resided somewhere in the back of her mind with occasional glimpses of motivation that led to attempts of resistance, which, in all honesty, were quite irrational. Things that leave scars have a tendency to be that way. 

 

Therefore Erin herself barely mattered anymore, having the bare minimum of things left to lose, it was the only logical conclusion she could draw. But there were people on the outside, still. 

 

Jillian.

Abby.

Patty.

 

The people who still had their lives. People who Erin still loved. The people who were played the leading roles in the memories that kept the physicist going, no matter how bad things got, though those memories were a thin rope tied to the cliff Erin was hanging from, holding onto it tight but her hands were getting tired and it was slowly slipping away, leaving a burning red mark on the hand that clung to life so stubbornly. So, even when a glass of water was placed under her nose, Erin turned her head away, regret seeping through her bones the instant the glass was removed and she was greeted with a shot of pain running through her instead, a familiar fist embedded in her cheek. 

 

“Give a dog a bone. She won’t take it.” Erin turned another cheek as her torturer spat on her in disgust. 

 

“Alright then. I tried,” Myrcella shrugged “guess you’d prefer it the hard way once again. Such a foolish girl you are, I’d’ve expected more from you, Professor Gilbert. Guess they were right to fire you after all,” she licked her lips, as if attempting to taste her following words, likely finding a sick pleasure in it, a sweetness in their bitterness “I’ll break you yet, Gilbert. Mark my words.” And Erin did. The belief that the woman was right had been embedding itself into her thoughts for long now. It’s odd how it becomes so easy to believe something once it is repeated to you countless times. 

 

It was almost a game at this point, guessing if this was the day they’d give in and give her the bare minimum of water or food to keep her alive or instead, give up on her all together and seeing as how they’d treated her so far, she probably wouldn’t walk out of there alive.

 

The pink-haired girl, an image, a thought flashing through her mind. Erin remembered her. Was she coming back? She’d give her water, Erin just knew she would. The physicist had met her once and yet somehow she found herself missing the girl.

 

Today, Erin felt far too tired to even try resisting when she was dragged into another room, laid down on her back, a cloth over her face. She knew what was coming, the anticipation burning under her skin in a sick twisted way, the wait for pain being almost as painful as the pain itself. She found herself wishing time would move faster, just this once, a selfish desire she saw no shame in. This was the second time. Had she not passed out last time, she would’ve spoken, would’ve given them everything they asked for. 

 

The water burned. This wasn’t how she’d seen it described in newspapers and online articles. It wasn’t stimulating drowning. This  _ was _ drowning. It was the first wave, just the first one, yet she was ready to tell anyone anything, whatever they wanted. She’d lie, she’d sell her soul, give the home addresses of the people closest to her to a terrorist organization or shoot someone, anything to just make it stop. 

 

Seconds to struggle for breath. Another wave of liquid torture rained down. Whoever had said torture was something people got used to had been a dirty fucking liar. It only got worse, it just burned more, hurt more, new scars couldn’t hide old ones.

 

It felt as if her lungs were filling up with water and perhaps they really were, Erin couldn’t tell. A soup of pain, nausea and choking was being force-fed to her, a mixture of damage and guilt. The guilt was one of the main parts of her remaining morality, the awful feeling that made her gut churn for even considering giving in. 

 

How had she longed for a sweet sip of water, the refreshing taste a lingering memory, and how conflicted it was with this. The irony cut through her as a knife, leaving behind a confused, broken woman. 

 

Coughing up water, gag reflex setting in, the burning feeling remaining in her nostrils, she tried to prepare for the third time, knowing deep inside that there was no point. It was a forever imprisoned in a few minutes, the moments before her body did the best for her and gave up on consciousness.    
  
Erin would never have called herself a quitter before. But this wasn’t before. Here lied her present, here lied her future. And here the title was nothing to be ashamed of. Some would even take pride in it. Perhaps, when enough time passed, she would, too, just not quite yet. For now it simply served as something that had become a part of her personality, a label she felt no shame in identifying with.

 

Quitter.

 

Nothing.

  
Meaningless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need a sign that says 'Feed the Feedback Vampire' so I can march around with it, begging for comments and reviews


	9. Et Lux In Tenebris Lucet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, rising from the dead, with a new chapter
> 
> Hello, yes, I remain still alive and writing but I have been so very busy but here, as an apology gift I bring you two brand new chapters

And there she was, once again. Strawberry pink hair and gentle hands, young skin, soft, likely never seen a callous in its day. Sasha's soft whimpers and nervous glances were sent around the room as Erin's eyes fluttered open.

 

 An overwhelming urge to hug the girl washed over Erin, one she couldn’t quite explain. She remained on the ground, though, partly due to her last remains of self-control, partly because of how scared she was to frighten the girl away and mostly due to the fact her muscles were far too tired and pained to be unnecessarily moved.

 

 The floor was familiar, still cold and still hard as stone. Of all things Erin’s mind could currently be occupied with it had decided to be stuck on playing “Hurt” on repeat. She wouldn’t give up so soon, she just couldn’t, right?

 

 “Hi.” Erin croaked.

 “I’m not supposed to talk to you.” The girl stood to leave, Erin reaching a hand after her.

 “No. Please. Don’t leave.” She pleaded.

 

 The girl kept her head down; her shoulders hunched in a way that made her look even shorter than she already was. Strands of pink hair hid some of her face.

 

 “I’m not allowed.”  
 “Please.”  
  
 Erin had well passed the verge of desperation, at this point, she’d do anything to get some human contact that wouldn’t revolve merely around pain.

 

 The girl took a cautious step forward.

 

 “Do you need anything else?” She asked.

 “No, I mean, yes but…” Erin found that she truly had no idea of what to say or even what to do. She struggled to find the words but seemed to come up empty every time. In the end, she was simply left lying there, gaping like a fish fighting for its life on dry ground.

 

 Sasha approached, carefully as ever, fearfully. She ran a hand through Erin’s messy dark curls, a motion Erin assumed was meant as a soothing one. She did her best not to wince under the touch when the hand slid across a badly bruised area. She wondered if the girl could feel the blood dried in her hair.

 

 “Who are you?” Erin asked.  
“I’m not allowed to say.”  
 “What’s your name?”  
 “Sasha.”  
 “Why are you here?”  
 “If I tell you, they’ll kill me.”  
 “How would they know? Are they listening right now?”  
 “No. They don’t monitor this cell. But they always know. And if they know we’ll both be as good as dead.” None of her words crossed the boundary of a mere whisper and her head never rose.

 “How long have you been here?”  
 “A forever. I’ve lost track.”

 “How long have I been here?”  
 “Around a week.” Sasha’s voice trembled and almost broke. For the first time, she looked into Erin’s eyes and the physicist could only now see just how filled with terror they were.

 “Listen to me, if you want to live just do as they say. You’re not the first one here.” She whispered in such a hurry there wasn’t a single breath between the words, not even a blink.

 

 Erin found herself staring at the girl in disbelief and horror. Before she had a chance to respond with anything Sasha spoke up again.

 

 “I have to go now. I’ll… I’ll come back tonight around midnight.” She looked away from Erin and stared at the door for a moment to mumble a few words to herself “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”  
  


 She stands up, with better posture than before, and walks to the door, typing in a code of some sort. Moments later the door is opened for her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *holding up a sign that says 'Feed the Feedback Vampire' and in extremely tiny writing at the bottom 'pretty please'*  
> Please put all your feedback donations into the comment bucket, thanks in advance you lovely human


	10. Eheu Fugaces Labuntur Anni

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the second chapter promised, it has arrived  
> Many thanks to interminatis-paradoxum from Tumblr for beta reading both of the last chapters
> 
> I really hope it's good

As it turns out, the hour was far from midnight when Sasha had left. Erin had deduced said fact from how much time had passed since, and of course, how she had been dragged into a room she had yet to see before. The grin on Myrcella’s face was, in all honesty, sickening. To her own bad luck, Erin found herself boiling with anger.

 

 “Ya know, having to look at your face, that’s the _real_ torture.” She spat with a cackle.

 “Excellent. Suffer.” The calmness in the woman’s voice only encouraged Erin. Today she just truly wished to make the woman lose her shit.

 “So what’s in store today? What are we doing, waterboarding or beating _again_?” She rolled her eyes and let out a mocking laugh. “A bit unoriginal, don’t ya think?”

 “Feisty today, are we, miss Gilbert?”  
 “That’s Doctor Gilbert to you.” And there it was, probably the only wink Erin had successfully pulled off in her life.

 “Careful, dear.” She smiled, finishing up whatever preparations she had spent the last few minutes making. Erin just rolled her eyes again.

 

 Myrcella approached yet Erin made no effort to even struggle against the restraints keeping her in the chair. The physicist just arrogantly shot a toothy grin.

 

 “I got something special for you today, don’t worry. Something just… for… you.” She didn’t look at Erin once when she spoke, the needle between her fingers seemed to interest her much more.

 “Color me intrigued.” The death stare that Erin now unleashed would’ve probably actually killed were Myrcella not looking away from her.

 “Oh, I think you’re going to love it, _ghost girl_.” She wiggled the needle between her fingers. “Tell me, _Doctor_ Gilbert, do you like Harry Potter?”  
 

 Erin remembered how Holtz had practically forced her to watch all of the movies. She forced the memory to the back of her mind and shook her head.

 

 “What are you gonna do then, cast a hex on me?” She cackled.

 “Not quite. I never liked the series that much I suppose. Got through all the movies though, considered the books – still considering. Throughout it all though, one character stuck out. She was my favorite. By style, we even have the same haircut. Anyways… All I was getting to was my inspiration for this delightful act you and I are gonna have so much fun engaging in. Well, mostly me.” She grinned once again. Erin just glared with anger boiling in her eyes and when Myrcella removed herself from Erin’s side the physicist jumped after her, stopped by her restraints.

 

 The woman stepped aside, revealing a simple steel table, on it, a lighter, a blow torch, and a metal scalpel. Erin finds herself predicting all the potential uses of those tools. It’s odd just how sweetly they remind her of Holtz’s lab, though the tools would be all over the place there, in a glorious mess that only the engineer could make sense of. She imagined she’d get burned today, maybe cut. In all honesty, she really didn’t care.

 

 The needle still dangling between her thumb and index finger, Myrcella lit the lighter. In an ordinary situation, this would be about the time Erin would get her explanation of what was going to happen to her and usually the option of surrendering and speaking provided beforehand, of course excluding the times she was simply dragged out of her cell, usually in her sleep, though she knew what to expect at those times by now, too. Whatever hurt enough, really.

 

 This time, however, her tormentor remained silent. She calmly untied Erin’s left arm. The metal was burning cold under Erin’s arm as she strapped it to the table with ties that felt much more like leather belts than anything else. _Oh, memories._ Erin almost laughed out loud at the thought. _Would she mind if I called her daddy?_

With that same stoic calm that in no way suits her face, M continued. She lit the lighter and started heating up the needle. When she considered it hot enough, she pressed it to Erin’s skin at full force, the lack of a sizzling noise making her disgruntled. Erin flinches yet no sound escapes from her lips. Myrcella mutters something to herself. She shakes her head, puts down the lighter and turns on the blow torch instead. Holding the needle in front of the flame she hums a repetitive tune Erin can’t seem to identify.

 

 When it is heated, the needle is brought down on skin again and this time it leaves a much clearer mark. She continues the process until a steady red curve is clearly visible on Erin’s arm and the woman’s jaw is clenched as a few stray tears roll down her cheeks. M brings the needle back to the blowtorch’s flame as Erin attempts to regain control over her breathing.

 

 When the needle comes down for the second time it feels no less painful. Though it does feel much colder than Erin would’ve expected, somewhere there, between freezing and burning, is a thin line and the needle is landed precisely on top of it.

 

 As the needle is lifted once more, Erin recognizes the first symbol now carved into her skin. _G._ With strict lines an H is formed. Calmly, she waits for the needle to be brought down for the third time, to prove true her expectations. It, just as she predicted, moves in a circular motion right next to the H. Erin swallows, hard and clenches her jaw even harder than before, surprised she hasn’t broken any of her teeth this way yet.

 

 Once more the needle is heated. Erin’s arm twitches under its touch. A solid S now stands next to the O. And just like that, with each letter, the needle is heated again, and then brought down. Erin twitches in the chair, twitches in the pain, struggles though she knows it’s useless. Like an animal, probably aware it cannot break out of its cage but refusing to give up on some natural instinct built into its system by evolution over the course of thousands, if not millions of years. _So many god damn years of useless fights – or are they just getting started? Who gives a fuck anyways?_

With that method, nine letters are formed. Her hand feels as if it is burning and yet she wouldn’t mind setting fire to it right now if it meant getting rid of it. A singular word echoes through her mind.

 

_Branded._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am immensely insecure about my writing sometimes and today is one of those days so if you have anything nice to say at all, please do. Constructive criticism also always appreciated.  
> Thank you for reading and for feeding the damn Feedback Vamp


	11. In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello it is me back again with a shitty update  
> Please read and validate me
> 
> also, thank you again (really gotta get on those fruit baskets) to the lovely interminatis-paradoxum from Tumblr and also to whoever her friend was for going over this chapter and helping me out a great deal (AGAIN)
> 
> Enjoy I guess, I'm having one of those periods in my writing where all I craft seems garbage and to say enjoy feels like lying, sorry

“So I may or may not have hacked into the NSA’s databases just a tiny bit,” Holtzmann confessed.

“Jillian Holtzmann, are you aware that this is a federal crime? They could put you away for life for this.” Abby spoke, raising her voice and clenching her fists tightly.

“Maybe, probably, I don’t really care. Look, I’ve figured it out… kind of. Well, some of it.” Holtzmann said with calm, although her widened eyes spoke a different story than her voice.

“Holtzy, the cops are on this, it’s their job.” Patty tried to reason.

“And that may be but if I let them handle this then we’re not going to get Erin back alive. They might be fucking geniuses at their job but they don’t know Erin like I do. I know her habits by heart, I know where she was going that day because she lives with a strict routine and I know that routine. Every Wednesday afternoon she goes to the café down the block to get a cup of coffee, I know that because I’ve gone with her and she lives in that habit religiously even though she thinks the place isn’t actually too great. She always goes to the same bartender because the guy knows exactly how she likes her coffee and she thinks he’s nice. So I went there and I asked him about it and he told me that he’d seen her there that day and that she’d left in a hurry. Now here’s the thing- he said Erin had left so urgently because she got a call, a call from me. But I didn’t call her! I didn’t fucking call her!” She tugged at her hair with both hands, glaring at the two women in front of her.

“So this is why I’ve been trying to break into their system for days, maybe weeks now, I don’t really know, I haven’t really slept so day and night have kind of lost all meaning and stuff. But I just can’t fucking get in, they have so many firewalls up, this stuff is not what I’m used to. I’ve been trying desperately to get her call recordings but all I have is white fucking noise.”

She took a sip of water, spilling some of it on the desk as her hand was shaking wildly. To be precise it wasn’t just her hand, it was her whole body twitching nervously, maniacally widened eyes looking up at her two concerned coworkers.

“You could still go to jail for this.” Abby reasoned.

Holtzmann slammed her fist on the table, knocking off the glass which shattered into pieces in front of her coworkers. Through gritted teeth she spoke up again.

“I don’t give a fuck if I go to jail or not. I need to find her!” She ran a hand through her messy curls and grabbed a bundle of them violently, tearing out blonde strands.   
  
“Jillian, calm down. We will find her. What you need to do right now is turn this information in to the investigators. I mean, you literally have to, otherwise, you’re withholding valuable information from the police which would be another federal crime and I’m not interested in seeing you being thrown in a cell, we’re not losing another team member! They have the call records, they have the access.” Abby spoke like the agitated mother of a teenager.

“Fine.” Holtzmann sighed and shook her head. “Fine. I’ll do it.” She then proceeded to get up from her chair, bloodshot eyes glaring at Abigail, and snatch her jacket. “And we haven’t lost Erin. Not fucking yet we haven’t.”

“Holtzy, where you goin’? It’s the middle of the night.” Patty shot after her.  
  
“To the police station of course.” Holtz’s voice was cold as the night and strangely determined for a person who hadn’t slept in days.

Rain was pouring outside and thunder could be heard in the distance. Jillian finally got around to wrapping her jacket around her once she’d reached the street, though the denim fabric of it wouldn’t do much to protect her against the rain. The sky was pitch black but the various streetlights and signs lit her way as she marched, with her head up high and her hands in the pockets of the jacket, straight to the police station.

She walked right up to the first person she saw, resisting the urge to take him in a chokehold before even talking to him.

“I have valuable information that might lead to the whereabouts of Erin Gilbert and I’d like to turn that information in.” She spoke with a calmness resembling the one before a storm.

“Gilbert? I don’t work her case. As far as I know they were just about to turn her case over to the Missing Persons Squad. I’m sorry, Miss but you’ll have to wait until morning if you wish to talk to anyone that’s on her case.” He responded.

“I’m here to give a statement, can’t you just film or… or write that stuff down or something?” Holtz asked, raising her voice.

“Look, I’m just an intern here. Just wait until morning, okay?” He looked scared as if he truly didn’t know what to do.

Jillian shook her head and laughed maniacally. She ran a hand through her hair. “Really? This is it? Just wait until morning? You know what, fine. Who cares, right? She might be dying, being murdered or tortured or something as we speak and I’ll just have to wait until morning.” She walked away, her steps heavy with anger, and found a chair to plop herself down on, one located so that it conveniently faced the clock on the wall.

And she waited, fingers tapping on the armrest uneasily, until the early hours of the morning.

“I’m sorry, Miss, what are you doing here?”

The words register through a blue haze as Holtzmann is woken by them. Days of no sleep were catching up against her will leaving her in a brief panic, figuring out where she was, remembering the whole world once again.  
“Your intern over there told me to wait until morning to deliver my statement.” She ran a hand through her blonde curls, an exhausted yet terrified breath leaving her lips. She swallowed hard. “I have information that might lead to the whereabouts of Erin Gilbert.” She spoke, making sure to stress the name, stretching out every single syllable.   
“Shi-” The officer shook his head and directed an angry look at the intern Holtzmann had spoken to before. “Miss-”  
“Holtzmann.”  
“Miss Holtzmann, I apologize for the wait. However, I regret to inform you that your statement will not be necessary.” He sighed, taking off his hat. “Miss Holtzmann, I am very sorry to inform you that Erin Gilbert is dead. My condolences.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback vamp, please feed, very hungry


	12. Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, short-ass chapter with a long wait but please do forgive me, I've been so busy and life is crazy as always  
> Not beta-read and not as well edited as usual, not saying it's a good chapter but I still hope you'll enjoy and leave feedback for your dearest Feedback Vamp (I may be needy but at least I don't look like I've been dipped in glitter)

******__** **__**

 “How long has it been?” Erin’s voice echoes through the near-empty room. She’s learned to hear every tiny detail in that box with four white walls and no matter how gentle the footsteps laid at the door might’ve been there was no way for her to not hear them, to not recognize them.

 “Since-”

 “No, don’t ask. You know what I mean, you fucking… you know. I… I’ve counted all the meals but… they’re inconsistent. I’ve tried to keep track but…” Erin’s face twitches as she speaks and she shakes her head, eyes squeezed shut.

 “Twenty-eight days.”  
 “Nineteen meals. Nineteen.” Erin snorted a brief laugh. “No wonder I can feel my ribs so easily.” She nods. “You promised to come.”  
 “I couldn’t.” Sasha cautiously took a few steps towards Erin.  
 “Why? I mean… You’re here now, what was stopping you before?” The physicist slowly stood up.

 “They were watching me, 24/7. It was terrifying. Any wrong movement…” Sasha closed her eyes and bit her lip, Erin understood. “I’m sorry.”

 “Well… I seem to have all the time in the world. Or none of it, I don’t know. Either way, it doesn’t really matter.” Erin’s words of comfort were much less comforting than intended but they got the job done. “So why are you here anyways? I mean, in general. Not this room but… ya know.” She continued.

 “I… I was supposed to be a doctor. I would’ve graduated. I could’ve…” Her voice broke mid-sentence. “I could’ve helped people. That’s what I always wanted to do. One night I was on campus, not out partying or anything, I was a good student; at least I really tried to be. And then at some point I just woke up here. I still have no idea how I got here or _why…_ I mean, I’ve wondered. Why _me?_ Why _now?_ But at some point I kinda gave up on trying to figure out. It was… useless. Hurt too much.” Tears were leaking from her crystal blue eyes and she wiped them off with her sleeve, still too long for her arms.

 “You could still be a doctor, you know? And help people, have a life. Maybe they’ll let you out at some point. You’re young, you could still have a life.” Erin tried to comfort her.

 “Let me out?” Sasha laughed, bitter-sweetly. “You’re kidding. We’re not living a fairytale.”

 “You’re right, we’re not. But you can’t give up hope.” Erin replied.

 “Says who? You’ve already given up hope, yes?” Sasha looked up with big scared eyes, sparkly from the tears.  
 “Well,” Erin hesitated. She thought of Holtzmann. She thought of Abby. She thought of Patty. She thought of Holtzmann again. “Maybe. But you’re younger. And they don’t have any specific reason to keep _you_ in here. So there’s still hope. Hope is always there, right?”  
 “I suppose you’re right. But if there’s anything I’ve learned in my years spend here… If you want hope, you need something to hope for and someone to rely on. But when you’re alone in a place like this there is no one you can rely on except for yourself.” Sasha raised her head, slowly.  
 “What are you saying?” Erin’s brow furrowed.  
 “I’m saying that I’ve got a way out. Face it, they’ll never let us out of here. But I’ve figured it out, I have a way out of here. I’m saying that I want you to come with me. I can’t make any promises that we’ll know where to go, I can’t promise that we’ll have anywhere to go at all but it’ll be better than this. Will you come?” Her eyes filled with a sudden hope.

 

 Erin let the words settle in as a blank expression settled in her glassy eyes. When she finally spoke her voice was barely there, monotonous yet certain, determined even.

 

 “Yes.” The word echoed through the room as the steps had before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments, they warm my soul and help me cope with my never-ending self-hate haha


	13. De omnibus dubitandum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my updates have been slow as of late but chapter 14 and 15 are already ready and 16 and 17 have been started so I promise to be better in the future. I cannot stress enough how much comments/feedback matters to me so if you like my writing/this story please do let me know, comments make my day I swear  
> Also, many thanks to interminatis-paradoxum from Tumblr for betaing this chapter and the next two and all in all being a wonderful person

 Erin isn’t quite sure how she ended up here. Malnourished, dehydrated, sleep-deprived, crawling through an air vent. She doesn’t weight much more than a straw at this point, otherwise, she’d be certain she’d fall through any minute now.

 

 The cuts from the metal are only a tiny addition to a map of scars already on her skin. In front of her crawls her guide, moving like a lizard through the tiny space.

 “I’ve spent weeks clearing up this path. Every time I was sure I’d get busted but…”  
  
 Erin wasn’t in much of a mood to talk right now, especially since someone could potentially hear them, and the thought terrified her.

 

 The pair of feet before her disappeared but the source of light she’d expected wasn’t there. She hooked a hand on each side of the opening and forced herself out of the tiny hole. As she rolled onto her back, panting, a sky of a thousand stars panned out above her. She was tired. She was hungry. She was in pain. But before her eyes lay the most beautiful sight and she sighed in relief.

 

 She could hear Sasha’s steps echoing in the ground as she danced with delight.

 

 “I can’t believe we actually did it.” Erin exhaled, realizing this was only the first step to ‘making it’. “How are we going to find food? Or shelter or water or… Or… home, how do we get back?”  
 “Haven’t figured that last one out yet but there’s a river a few hundred meters away and where there’s water there is fish.” An unfamiliar happiness paraded in Sasha’s voice.  
 “That’s actually not how it works but… Worth a shot, I guess.” Erin shrugged, getting up against her will.

 

 Despite Erin’s doubts, the river was, indeed, where Sasha said it would be and one could see plenty of fish swimming along the current. She had no idea how to fish so instead she settled for finding shelter.

 

 “So why were you there anyway?” It’s only then that Erin realizes Sasha never knew who she was in the outside world.

 “It’s a long story.” She decided.

 

 Sasha gestured to the sky and the trees with a grand wave.

 

 “We’ve got all the time on the world, yes?”  
 “In the world, not on.” Erin had to ask herself why she was dodging the question.

 “Sorry, my English is sometimes spotty,” Sasha explained.

 

 Just when Erin was about to exhale in relief, thinking she’d dodged the question, Sasha persisted.

 

 “You’re not like me, are you?”

 “No. They want something from me.” Erin spoke, a pained expression painting her face. She could’ve spoken about everything they wanted, she knew well after it’d been screamed in her face time and time again as pain rained down on her like acid pouring from the skies.

 “What is it?” Sasha asked, question in her childlike blue eyes. Erin took a deep breath. The wind messed with her pink hair as Sasha took a cautious step back. “I’m sorry, I ask too many questions. Stupid, stupid, stupid me.” Her eyes watered. “Please don’t hurt me?”

 

Erin wasn’t even sure what to do. Not only did she feel guilty, it also felt odd that someone could thing she was somehow capable of hurting anyone in this state. She felt weak and vulnerable beyond words and yet right there, in front of her, stood someone who was actually scared of her. It felt even worse to realize she was somewhat glad her starved and broken self still had some ability to seem intimidating.

 

 “Hey, relax. It’s fine. Just brings up some… stuff. Like you said, trying to figure out the reasons in life hurts too much sometimes. So does remembering.” She paused, a silence stood between them, it seemed even the mosquitos in the air had stopped mid-flight to listen to the quiet. “I work in the paranormal field…” She shrugged gently. “Ghosts and stuff. So what I’m going to say now will make me sound like a lunatic, not that that’s anything new. Anyways, you were probably already…” She gestured abstractly. “…there when it happened but me and these other three people kind of proved that ghosts were real and saved New York and maybe the world, it’s… complicated, okay? And I work with these three now. Or worked, I guess. But apparently, I underestimated the value of information and control over the paranormal.”  
  
 Sasha was now staring at her, eyes even wider than usual.

 

 “You probably think I’m crazy now, yes?”  
 “No. No, not at all. No one believed me back then but… I swear to god, when I was just a kid I saw one of them. Like a ghost, I think, maybe a spirit, I don’t know. My mama always said it was an angel and papa… Well, before he died he used to tell me it was all in my head. I stopped telling people after kindergarten.” She sadly smiled up at Erin. “So, you believe me, right?”  
 “Of course.” Erin nodded, holding back tears.

 

 A comfortable silence took hold as Sasha went back to trying to figure out how to transform a piece of wood into a fishing rod. Erin did her best to remember what she’d learned that one time she’d taken part of a survival camp and regretted it immediately.

 

 Once Sasha had finished tying one end of a strand of her long hair to a wooden stick and the other end to a worm she’d dug up from wherever she looked back at Erin, coming out of a coma of concentration.

 

 “So who are the three others?” She immediately looked back at her feet. “I mean, only if you don’t mind me asking, I’m really sorry if-” Erin cut her off.

 “It’s fine. Ask whatever, I don’t… I don’t mind.” She bit her lip. “Well, Abby is my high school best friend. She was the only person who believed me back then, we dedicated our whole lives to the paranormal, wrote a book, even. Everyone thought we were freaks but at least we had each other. But things went way south along the way. I got this job at Columbia, as a professor and I left her behind, it was awful. Then, years, I mean, decades later I got a visit from a man I didn’t know and he had the book with him so that led me to track down Abby and there, at Higgins, I met Holtzmann. That’d be the third member of our team.” Erin took a moment to breathe before continuing.

 

 “It’s a complicated story, really. Jillian Holtzmann… She is of another kind, had sort of an alien aura. Very strange but also a genius. She’s made me question… a lot of things, actually. I think I’m in love with her… Gosh, I haven’t told anyone about that, strange confession. You probably don’t care about that though.” She laughed gently yet with a tone of sadness radiating in the back of her voice. “And then there’s Patty. The historian. She knows everything there is to know about New York’s history. Absorbs history books in a millisecond. So the four of us together, we’re the Ghostbusters. It’s a silly name but in my defense, we didn’t exactly get to choose.” She concluded.

 

 To Erin’s surprise, Sasha said, “Tell me more about Jillian.” She wasn’t quite sure why she trusted Sasha like this but it was something about her presence, it was comforting, safe. Innocent.

 

 “Holtzmann. Everyone calls her Holtzmann, or Holtz. Unless Abby is angry with her for blowing something up again, then she’ll use her mother voice and say Jillian Holtzmann. And Patty calls her Holtzy. She’s the engineer of our group, designs _and_ builds all of the equipment we use. Like her, the tools she creates are genius. She’s so strange yet so familiar. Being with her is like understanding each other completely and yet having a myriad of things to learn about one another. She’s kind of like sunshine, you know what I mean?” Erin asked, looking at Sasha.

 

 “I know you sound like the girls who were in my high school talking about their crushes.” Sasha teased. Erin laughed light-heartedly.

 

 “So what was your life like before all this?”

 

 They talked way into the night, up until the sun shone a thin strip behind the trees. Erin squinted and suddenly went quiet. She hadn’t seen the sun in god knows how long, that is to say, she’d somehow forgotten how mind-blowingly gorgeous it was. Everything was suddenly so bright and the trees were nearly shining with the most gorgeous shades of green. The water glimmered with sparkles and Erin could now see the bottom of the river under the clear water.

 

 It felt as if a giant weight had just been lifted off her chest and she could finally breathe again, the fresh air filling her lungs ever so wonderfully.

 

 The first shot she was too overwhelmed by the beauty to even hear. The second one came to her through a blur and when a soft hand grabbed her arm and a soft voice pleaded her to move it seemed as if she’d somehow dove into the river and the outside world came to her through a thick barricade of water.

 

 She went along, instinctively. As her feet hit the ground again and again her head came back from the clouds. It was a sudden drop, not a gentle one, as reality hit her in the face with a bat. And she ran, as fast as her legs allowed her. She ran, the adrenalin pumping through her veins probably the only thing that kept her going. She ran, hearing footsteps behind her, not bothering to figure out if they were friend or foe. She ran as more gunshots echoed through the air. She ran, passing a terrified mess of long pink curls. She ran, fear running through her veins.

 

 Her feet were torn apart by the sharp rocks on the road, her body ached all over but she kept going. There was no way she was going back.

 

 She ran, towards the sun, she wouldn’t lose sight of it. She’d never lose it again.

 

 “Erin!” A cry somewhat similar to a pained dog, followed with a light thud. She wouldn’t go back, no. She didn’t go back but she stopped, perhaps only for a second. It was too much.

 

 She couldn’t see the sunlight anymore, nothing but darkness covered her eyes. Her hands were forced behind her back as she let herself drop to her knees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *insert mandatory feedback vampire joke* Seriously though, I crave validation, I am the physical embodiment of insecurity


	14. Diem perdidi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See? I kept my promise about quicker updates.  
> I want to thank interminatis-paradoxum again because she puts up with my constant need for a beta and does a wonderful job at being a beta and is generally a great human so shout-out to her.  
> I hope ya'll enjoy this chapter, that word being used in a very Stephen King-y way. As always, feedback is a code word for feeding my soul, if you leave a comment then I want to thank you from all the depths of my heart, it really does mean a lot.

 When she first sees light again it’s unnatural and eerily bright. She spots a pair of eyes in front of her, familiar in their cold and unforgiving nature. The man she hadn’t seen in weeks, maybe months, and yet she’d recognize him within half a second at any given time.

 

 “What foolishness, Miss Gilbert, what foolishness.”  
 “It’s _Doctor_ Gilbert to you.”

 “Of course, of course. But you of all people should know our labels are not what make us.” The carvings on Erin’s hand itched. “What you did was of a very foolish nature. Now, of course, I cannot kill you, not _yet,_ but I do figure a moral lesson is due here. You see, actions have consequences and I want you to be very, very aware of that.” He spoke with a calmness so disturbing were Erin’s hands not tied behind her back, she’d punch him.

 

 Screaming, wailing filled the hallway as a girl Erin had never seen before, young with a Slavic type of beauty, was dragged out of one of the many rooms in the hallway. The person bringing her had their face covered with a black cloth, like a bank robber, only leaving holes for the eyes.

 

 The girl looked terrified. Her cheeks were stained with tears, her eyes wide with horror as she kicked and struggled with no results. Her red hair was dirty and messy, dried up blood cluttering strands of it. The person holding her had a knife in their other hand.

 

 “Actions have consequences. You’d do well to remember that. _Doctor_ Gilbert.” He said before walking off and leaving Erin behind.

 

 The person in black lifted the knife to the young woman’s throat. Slowly, and then urgently, blood began seeping out. The knife moved languidly through her neck as blood splattered onto Erin’s body. Screaming filled the air until it cut off and was replaced with a gurgling sound as blood spluttered from her neck. The panic had left her eyes, leaving behind nothing but emptiness and yet the knife kept going further and further, brutally, like a butcher, until the limp body fell to the ground alone.

 

The person in the mask let the head drop to the floor as they dragged the body out of the room carefully and shut the door behind them, leaving Erin all alone. Sitting on her knees, in pain, unable to move, nothing more but a severed head and immense guilt to keep her company.

 

 She lowered her head and wept.

 

_This is all my fault. This is all my fault. This is all my fault._

The words kept running through her head, seemingly without an end, distracting her momentarily from the pain her knees were in and the haunting loneliness this room surrounded her with.

 

 She lifted her head, looking up at the ceiling, not sure if anyone was listening or watching her, not sure which would be better. Her cheeks were red from the tears and her body was trembling with an emotion beyond words, worse than fear and worse than loneliness, worse than depression and guilt. She felt… cold. Freezing on the inside, overheating on the outside.

 

 “Why won’t you just kill me now? Why? What do you fucking want from me?” She screamed and wept and screamed again, dodging the sight of the lifeless eyes at her feet, not staring at her but worse, lifelessly glaring, the final silent scream of a soul fated to a life she did nothing to deserve. A fate worse than death, Erin hoped. Perhaps, hopefully, even, if that word dare be used, death at least brought an end to her sufferings.  And in that sense she might’ve even envied the girl whose severed head remained on the ground in front of her, seeping blood. If Erin could’ve used her arms she would’ve closed those eyes, filled with a haunting sense of emptiness. Perhaps that was what the void looked like, perhaps that’s what if felt like when you stared into the void and the void stared back at you.

 

 This couldn’t be real, could it? How was this her life? How was this her reality?                            

 

Her tears glimmered in the air as they quickly, one by one, dropped to the ground, forming tiny pools reflecting light in bright formations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this the part where I advertise Audible or ask you to support my Patreon? Nope, I have been informed that it is not.  
> Never the less, I continue to be a feedback vampire and would be so very glad to not starve, your comments light up my day and often night!


	15. Cupio dissolvi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, many, many thanks to interminatis-paradoxum from Tumblr  
> And as always, I hope you enjoy, comments and kudos heavily appreciated

 This couldn’t be real. This simply could not be real. Any time now she’d wake up, the music would shut off and the gun to her head would dissolve into thin air. And yet it stayed in its place, cold against her temple.

 The music was something she was certain she knew from somewhere, an opera. As she squeezed her eyes shut as hard as she could she tried to recall what it was called. What an odd thing to think about while held at gunpoint, how peculiar it was that if today was the day she’d die she’d want to at least remember the name of the song that played during her execution.

 “Leo Delibes. The Flower Duet. Beautiful, isn’t it? It’s what my father always played so no one could hear me cry out for help when man after man walked into my room and left me behind in even more pieces than before. And what I played when I killed them all, one by one. Even then they never knew what my pain was like. But finally, I think I’ve turned you into someone who knows my level of pain. Tonight it’s up to you if this shall be your requiem. Open your eyes. I said open them!”

 Erin slowly and cautiously did as she was told. She was faced with the same mess of purple curls as the first time she’d woken up in this place. How long ago had that been? The sun remained a distant memory.

 “Why would I tell you anything? You’ll kill me anyway.” She lifted her chin, looking up into two malicious emerald green eyes.

 “Oh, now. Such pessimism. We could decide to be generous Gods. The sooner you speak, the less pain you will go through. And trust me, you will speak. It is none but a matter of time.” M spoke with an eerie ease in her voice.

 “What do you want from me?” Erin asked through gritted teeth.     

 “Well, that’s more like it. First tell me exactly how you manage to trap paranormal beings and how you can let them out.”

“I don’t know.” Erin said.

 

 Erin could hear the sound of a hammer being cocked.

 

 _I’d be a hell of a lot more grateful if you’d take that gun away from my head_ _._ Was what Erin would’ve wanted to say. Instead she silently shook her head.

 

 “I don’t know anything. And I am not…” she gritted her teeth “I am not going to let you hurt any of them.”

 

 “You love her, don’t you?”

 “What? Who?” Erin shook her head in confusion.

 “Don’t play dumb with me, Gilbert, I know you’re not stupid. Admit it. You’re in love with her. Admit it.”

 

 The cold metal pressed into Erin’s temple, harder than before.

 

 “Fine. What does that give you?”

 “I’m asking the questions here. You’re making me impatient and you know… I don’t like that. So you’re getting ten seconds to start talking about the equipment you use and how you built it. One…”

 “I already told you, I don’t know anything.” Sure, that was a lie but there was a chance she’d believe it, right?

 “Two…”

 

 The gun pressed into her temple feels cold.

 

 “Three…”

 

 Erin closed her eyes.

 

 “Four… Five… Tick-tock, Erin, tick-tock.”

 

 Her teeth sink so deep into her bottom lip she tastes blood, feeling it on her tongue. Tasting like iron, tasting… familiar.

 

“Six…”

 

 A sick anticipation burns in her bones.

 

 “Seven…”

 

 She focuses on pressing her eyelids together tighter and tighter, waiting for the bang.

 

 “Eight…”

 

 The Flower Duet keeps playing in the background, nearing the end.

 

 “Nine…”

 

 She pulls the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still a feedback vampire, still hungry, hopefully not too obnoxious (my new tinder bio)


	16. Cogitationes posteriores sunt saniores

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta-read by ghstbusting from Tumblr, thank you so much! 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter and won't quit reading this fic because I take so long to update ya'll

 The sun had barely risen as Holtzmann found herself hunched over her workbench, tired from an all-nighter but resistant to the mere idea of sleep. Perhaps she’d be more welcoming to it were her dreams not always centered around a certain person and torture to get through.

A month has passed, probably more. For a month she’s believed Erin’s dead, for a month she’s mourned, days have passed painfully and each movement is filled with a certain lacking inside her heart. Food has lost all appeal meanwhile alcohol has grown to be her new lover.

 

 It all added up so what was there to not believe? A suicide note found in her apartment, Erin’s quick yet graceful handwriting on it and all. Sure, someone could’ve faked it, nothing’s impossible but there was no direct point to even run it through forensics thanks to… the body. The one in the Hudson River, to be more specific. The one with Erin’s hair and Erin’s clothes and Erin’s DNA. What grosses Holtzmann out the most is that Erin must be just another suicide to the cops. Erin should never be considered _just_ anything.

 

 She sips tea mixed with bourbon from an elegantly decorated cup, lilacs dancing on its surface. She feels oddly numb, somehow sore. The cup isn’t hers, it’s Erin’s, or at least it used to be. She hasn’t gone home in ages, has tried to bury herself in work and concentrate so hard on it that she’d lose the ability to think about anything else.

 

 Why had she been so afraid to tell Erin how she felt? Perhaps if she’d told her Erin wouldn’t have felt compelled to end herself. She was the one that got away and it was all Holtz’s own fault. _I’ve lost the love of my life and I never even gave myself the chance to tell her I loved her._ And in a millisecond all the pain and suffering and all the lost loves across the world laid on her back as a heavy wall of bricks or guilt.

 

 And yet something continues to bother her about all this. Thought Abby had earlier been the one to remind everyone of how reckless and self-destructive Erin had been when they were younger even she had found all this just too odd to make sense. Erin wasn’t like that, she wouldn’t have done something like that and Holtz knew that well. So when the initial waves of shock, panic, denial and depression had passed she questioned everything more and more. Though behind every thought, there she was, reminding herself that she was probably overthinking everything, telling herself that she probably just didn’t know Erin well enough. We do, after all, tend to ignore all faults in those we love.

 

_What if I’d told her? What if I hadn’t waited until it was too late? We could be happy, right here, right now, happy together. This is my fault._

 

 Time of death had been declared 12:34 however that couldn’t be because Erin had been seen at the café at around 12:30. Holtzmann had checked, repeatedly. There was no way Erin could’ve gotten to the river in less than 10 minutes. That was the fastest time possible that was slow enough to not land Holtz with a speeding ticket. Though taking into consideration that Erin was, in fact, a safe driver and that she’d probably like to take a moment before such a significant action, it would’ve had to be at least 20 minutes.

 

 It didn’t add up but neither did anything in Jillian’s life at this point. She could feel herself giving up. The mayor was pressuring them into finding a new fourth team member since they were clearly much less efficient without Erin. Abby was mourning quietly and Patty was angry at the world but Holtz seemed to just be shutting down.

 

 It was as if she was dying, it was just that no one could actually tell because she was doing it so damn slowly.

 

_If I’d been there for her soon enough, if I’d paid more attention I wouldn’t have had to throw handfuls of her body into the sea. Her but not her, those ashes were Erin’s but they weren’t Erin. Erin laughs and cracks awkward jokes. Ash is ash, stupid fucking ash._

 

 

 A butterfly gracefully landed on her desk. How it had gotten inside, she didn’t know. Next to the intruder she noticed the note that sat across from her, placed within sight but just far away enough. She hadn’t read it yet, hadn’t dared. A slow buzzing filled the back of her brain just as it had for so many days before as contemplation set in and her fingers begun to itch. She grit her teeth and snatched it, pressing her eyes shut.

 

 When she opened her eyes she almost expected to see something horrifying, blood or fire, hell on Earth. Instead, it was just a regular note, handwritten, obvious folding marks crossing the paper. She’d seen it before, it looked the same now. Closing her eyes again, she took a deep breath, opened them and begun to read.

 

_To whom it may concern,_

_I, Erin Gilbert, have chosen to commit suicide. This may come as a shock to you and I apologize for any pain or inconvenience I’ve caused with this decision._

 Typical Erin. Apologizing for everything. Being formal with every written word, even with ghosts she’d been formal.

 

  _I will not go into further detail as of why I made this decision. Those who know me will figure it out and those who don't have no business knowing._

Figure it out? Nothing about this made sense to Holtzmann. A sharp jolt of pain shot through her chest when the thought of herself falling under the category of those who did not know Erin hit her.

 

  _I have always had a last will ready, just in case. Nothing long and nothing too bothersome. This is where I get into the more personal part of this note. The following words are addressed to my long-time best friend, Abigail Yates, my coworker and dear friend, Jillian Holtzmann, and Patricia Tolan, who I hope in her bright and energetic fashion, may be able to bring happiness back to our headquarters._

_Dear Abby,_

_You of all people should understand. We’ve spent many years together, involving those that we were most reckless in._

At that point, Holtzmann skipped ahead. That part was directed at Abby, not her. She didn’t feel right reading it.

 

  _Dear Holtz,_

_I didn’t have the privilege to know you for a long time. Never the less we’ve had some wonderful times together and for that I am grateful._

_I am especially fond of a certain memory of ours. It was probably the sunniest day of the year and I was insisting on staying inside but you were persistent and after a while of convincing, you managed to get me to go outside. The sun was so bright it lit up my skin & I felt like a whole different person. It felt like the sun transformed me and I was so glad I’d gone outside. You were wearing that one red shirt I like and I value the memory of that smile you’re always wearing, your always-bright smile. I just wanted to quickly write that down so or last memory together wouldn’t be just an ordinary afternoon._

Abby’s note had sounded odd for Erin, sure, but this one sounded ridiculously faux. Holtzmann didn’t even _own_ a red shirt and she had no memory of that day. She’d never convinced Erin to go outside, in fact, Erin was the one usually dragging her outside since the sun was healthy or whatever. Holtz would’ve just stayed in and tinkered with her tools.

 

 The memory Erin described had never happened. No, this wasn’t Erin. Erin didn’t write it. Why on Earth would she write a fake memory into her suicide note? The universe was spinning and nothing made sense. The butterfly flapped its wings and flew away.

 

 Her heart jumped at the opportunity to make things right, no matter how crazy she seemed, no matter how impossible it probably was.

 

 _Whoever wrote this, it wasn’t Erin._ Holtz decided with shaking hands. _So why would they include such a specific memory? They could’ve gotten away with a simple goodbye and I love you so why this? Why would they complicate their own life? They wouldn’t._ The text read so fake that there was no way for it to be unintentional _. Unless there was something they wanted me to know._

Oddly specific, the “memory” focused heavily on being outside, sunlight. A sudden urge to take the note outside took hold of Holtz.

 

 With the paper in her hand, she rushed out to the roof. As the letter basked in the sunlight thirty letters changed from black to red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I crave. v a l i d a t i o n.
> 
> Please leave comments, they feed by soul as well as my body I physically consume feedback instead of food now


	17. Impossibilium nulla obligatio est

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to @ghstbusting from Tumblr for being a wonderful beta for this chapter  
> I hope ya'll enjoy, and keep reading this thing despite my slow updates lol; I promise I'm trying

 

_ No bang. _

 

_ No pain.  _

 

_ No nothing. _

 

_ I don’t dare open my eyes. _

 

When they finally do flutter open, tears filling their corners, fear reflecting from them the sight Erin witnesses is Myrcella laughing, open mouthed, a sadistic glint in her eyes. Her voice, even when laughing, is threatening,  cruel with a hint of sick glee residing within it.

 

“Oh darling, have you never played Russian roulette before?”   


Erin is too out of breath to answer right away. She sucks in large gulps of air and looks around.

 

“No, I can’t recall that ever happening actually,” Erin said, breathing heavily and clenching her fists in a desperate attempt to ground herself.

“Ah. Shame. More fun with experts, ya know.”   
“So sorry to disappoint.”   
“You’re surprisingly feisty for someone who has broken written clear as the sky in her eyes.”   
“Well, I wouldn’t really know if the sky is clear, we’re kind of both underground.”   
“If I take you outside will you start talking?”   
  
Erin considers. She knows that when she speaks it’s off with her head. But if she doesn’t speak, this torture will last until her body just gives out,  which could take anything from weeks to years.  The thought of never seeing the sun again before her death… It terrifies her. Yet, despite everything, she couldn’t betray her team. She could say she’ll speak and refuse to once she’s out but that would result in nothing more than only further pain. 

 

“What do you want to know? And you know what, don’t just say everything. Specifics.”   
“Guess it’s true what they say about flies and honey. Fine. You want an official list of questions or something? I’ll get you a fucking list.”    
“That would be appreciated.” Erin nodded, doubting herself internally.  M turned on her heel and strode out of the room, shutting the door behind her with a click.  Erin wondered if she was only imagining it or if the woman actually seemed tired.

 

Perhaps a day had passed when the woman walked back into Erin’s cell. Really it could’ve been days or only minutes but a day was Erin’s best guess. The physicist had no concept of time as the cell was brightly illuminated at all times and she’d had no meal times in the past few days, or hours, really, she couldn’t tell.    
  
This time M was holding a paper, folded twice to make it more compact. She handed it to Erin, saying nothing, and walked out of the room right after.

 

Erin unfolded it, finding another paper between it. Both sides of both pages had been printed full of text and formatted properly.  _ I’m in for a long night,  _ Erin thought, correcting herself a moment later  _ or day or… days?  _

 

Without hesitation she began reading.

 

Having walked out and closed the door behind her, M simply stared at it. The white door, same as every other, standing tall and proud in front of her, impenetrable and strong. She stared at the tiny cracks in the very surface of it. Stared intensely until her eyes began watering, then let her vision blur and mind drift away. She sighed and walked away, ripping the necklace off her neck, throwing it away carelessly before kicking it at the wall. 

 

The intricate once-golden patterns inside the crescent moon had faded years ago but the tiny amethyst gem was still shining bright as ever, even discarded on the floor under blindingly bright lighting. The letters engraved on the back of it were facing the floor for no one to see.

 

“Hey, we got anything left to eat?” M asked, a nonchalant expression on her face. No reply, only the continuous clicking of a pen filling the room. She snipped her fingers. “Hey! I’m human, you know? And I’ve gone three days without eating, you know what that does to the human body? After the first six hours it runs out of glucose and enters ketosis and I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but I don’t have much fat to use as energy. Besides, the brain can’t handle fatty acids. The cognitive functioning becomes impaired. After 72 hours, where we are now, the body will start to break down its own protein to get glucose. The body is literally cannibalizing itself by destroying muscle mass. I can’t think right without eating because it’s literally destroying my brain. If I’m not dead within a few weeks because my immune system has become so weak I’ll die of cardiac arrhythmia or organ failure or something else will catch up. So if you feel like having someone down here to torture your girl you better supply me with some sustainable nutrients, J.”

 

The man rolled his eyes and threw a can of beans over his shoulder, in the general direction of M. It should’ve hit the ground, by all reaction times of physics, yet somehow the woman managed to catch it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback Vampire! Please feed! Always hungry! Very hungry!


	18. Contra spem spero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooooooooooooh stuff is happening

**_When, not if we meet again, my first words will be I love you._ **

****

_Riverside Motel and St Mary’s Liquors._ The letters spelled out when Holtz had written them down on a separate paper. Before she even had time to think she’d rushed to her laptop and typed the words into Google. Not much showed up. Image search gave her four or five pictures; one or two articles spoke of the place.   
  
 Words flashed before her eyes. _On the border of Florida and Georgia. Exact location unspecified. Abandoned for decades._ During her search she stumbled upon a video, a man walking around the property. The place looked as if it’d been untouched by humans for a long time yet Holtzmann imagined it must’ve looked rather beautiful back in its prime.

 

 “What does it mean?” She whispered to herself as a spark of hope lit up in her heart. Why Erin would be there, she did not know. Something about this was definitely off but she couldn’t resist the hope. A part of her expected to find Erin right there, sitting in one of those rooms, on one of those beds, ready with an explanation that’d make sense, that’d put all the stars in the universe back to their correct places.

 

 Holtz heard the door open. Must’ve been Patty, Abby was always the last to arrive. She checked the time. 7am, on the dot. Patty was precise as always.

 

 Holtz decided to not confront her with the new information before Abby arrived. To some extent she was scared of their potential reaction. But if anyone was going to believe her and this crazy mess, it’d be those two. They were, after all, ghostbusters. That took quite a bit of belief in the impossible.

 

 At nearly 8am the door opened again and Abby stepped through it. Holtz took a deep breath, collecting herself in order to sound the least crazy possible.

 

 Nervous, she stood up from her desk and walked downstairs with the note in her hands.

 

 “Guys… Don’t think I’m crazy when I say this, alright? Just… give me a chance, hear me out.” Holtz started. The two looked at her in confusion.

 

 “This is Erin’s suicide note.” She held up the paper. “Except it’s not really Erin’s. And I’m… I’m pretty sure Erin is alive.” Holtz didn’t know what to anticipate but her best guess was either a trip to the psych ward or at least some excitement. It was… neither.

 

 “Oh, Holtzy… Look, I know you miss her…”  
 “I know it’s hard to accept that she’s gone… We all miss Erin a lot…”

 “She’ll always be alive in our hearts…”  


 “No.” Holtz shook her head aggressively. “No. I mean, Erin is genuinely, actually probably alive. This note, right? Well, in the part addressed to me Erin, or whoever, has written a memory. But thing is, that thing never even happened. And I… I took it out into sunlight and then some letters changed colors and they were red and they spelled out words. I wrote them down on paper and they spell out Riverside Motel and St. Mary’s Liquors. So I looked up the place and it all makes sense, well… kind of. My point is, Erin is alive. And someone wants me to know that.” She rushed, still holding the note up.

 

 When she didn’t get an answer, she continued.

 

 “I looked it up. It’s somewhere near the Florida/Georgia border. And I’m going. So… who’s with me?” Even Holtz realized she must’ve looked rather crazy right now.

 

 “Holtzy… You know that sounds crazy, right?”  
  
 “Yes! Ghosts also sounded crazy. Our whole lives sounded crazy at some point. But it’s all still there. Erin’s life could be at risk, I mean, it probably is!”  
 “Holtz… Even if all this was true, despite… everything, how do you know it’s not a trap?”  
 “I don’t.” The engineer shook her head. “But I’m taking my chances.”  
 “Erin’s body was found, Holtz. She’s gone.”  
 “It’s… Look, I can’t explain that yet but those ashes that we threw into the ocean? They weren’t Erin’s, I don’t know how they pulled it off yet but…”  
 “Who are “they”?” Patty asked. Before Holtz could say anything Abby pulled Patty aside, far enough for Holtz not to hear their discussion.

   
 “Maybe we should just… let her go. See the place for herself. Realize Erin isn’t there. I don’t think she’ll be able to let go of this if she doesn’t.” Abby spoke.  
 “That’s a 20-hour drive, Abby. That’s crazy. What if she hurts herself?” Patty replied.  
 “She’s a grown woman, despite everything. Maybe we should just let her grieve in her own way?” Abby suggested, surprising herself by considering it.  
 “I dunno. I mean… I guess we can’t stop her.” Patricia gave in.

 

 They walked back over to Holtz, who was trying to figure out if she truly was crazy or if Erin was truly still alive.

 

 “You can go. You can check the place out. See for yourself, Erin isn’t there. If you want to. Make sure you stay safe, let us know where you are. Don’t hurt yourself.” Abby told Holtz.  
 “We get it’s really hitting you hard. Everyone grieves their own way.” Patty agreed.

 

 Holtzmann shook her head.

 

 “I’m going. But… Erin is alive. I can’t be wrong about this. _I can’t.”_ She said.

 

 “If, by some miracle, you do find something… We’ll come after you. We’ll help. But just so you know, Holtzy… You’re fighting a helpless case.” Abby said, pressing her lips together.

 

 Holtzmann shook her head, determination in her eyes for the first time in weeks.

 

 “There’s still a chance and I’m going to take any chance I get. This isn’t over yet.” She said, each word giving the following a confidence boost. With each word she spoke she became more certain in herself. “This isn’t over yet. I am not going down without a fight.”

 

 Abby gave her a small sad smile and Patricia patted her on the shoulder as if to say ‘I’m sorry’. They meant well, of course they did. Any sane person would assume Erin was dead when the body was found. But that was the case- Jillian Holtzmann was most definitely not a sane person and she was certain that Erin Gilbert was still alive.

 

_I am not going down without a fight._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feed the feedback vampire, I'm sure it's considered charity work somewhere


	19. Ridere rursus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a really short chapter but it is necessary and I promise things are about to get REAL intense REAL soon with this fic and I'm sorry for my updates being so slow as of late, I really am!  
> Anyways, enjoy! And sorry I didn't get this beta read, I'm too sleepy
> 
> Also, this story is gonna become a series. So the capture storyline is the first part and recovery will be the second part. This first part isn't going to be over 25 chapters long, that's the closest I'm getting to a promise

 Holtzmann ventured through the buildings, only half conscious after the long drive. How she’d ever get back home in one place, if she would, she didn’t know.

 

 She had to admit a part of her died as the hope of Erin casually sitting on one of those old broken beds, ready with an explanation, was erased from her mind. Riverside Motel was just as abandoned as the Internet had told her it would be, with no sign of life except for the various insects and a couple of birds singing in the distance.

 

 Back in its prime this place must’ve been beautiful. All the possible stories of travelers and their intricate lives ran through Holtz’s head as walked the paths they must’ve walked. If perhaps Erin was among those travelers, years late.

 

 There was no sign of the woman, however, or anyone at all for that matter. She walked around, stepping into a few of the rooms. Some would’ve required a bloody gas mask, if Jillian wanted lung cancer she wouldn’t have quit smoking.

 

 The rooms resembled each other in a lot, with tiny variations such as the proximity of the walls and the colors of remaining wallpaper. The only one that stood out in the slightest did so by having some graffiti on one of its more miserable-looking walls. A game of hang-man, though Holtz didn’t bother paying the thing much attention. She snapped a quick picture of the place and moved on hastily.

 

 The fatigue was kicking in as Holtz watched the sky slowly change color into a smooth blend of orange and pink. Her feet wavered under her for a moment, mind getting foggier with each step. She decided to call it quits for today as means to avoid passing out on the grass, among the insects, or the pavement that would surely provide a _lovely_ pillow.

 

 The Ecto-1 stood not far from the motel. Holtz came to realize that it would be her bedroom for the night. Not the most luxurious accommodation but at this level of sleep-deprivation she probably wouldn’t mind sleeping on wet grass as long as she got to sleep.

 

 She crawled into the empty backseat and uncomfortably found some odd position to sleep in. She thought about the first time she’d ever met Erin, the car they drove in that day. She bitter-sweetly reminisced in all the good memories she had with Erin and this particular car. All the busts that were giant successes and some that were such big failures they became hilarious. All the firsts and all the… No. There were no lasts yet.

 

 She remembered all the times they’d almost died and somehow still made it as reality blurred with the wonderland of her dreams. Dreaming made her uncomfortable these days. Anything happy made her feel guilty, and when she was unfortunate enough to wake up it hurt a bit too much to not try at least a few times to go back to sleep, back into her dreams. And when it was nightmares… There were demons she’d seen in her sleep she wouldn’t wish on her worst enemies, if she had any.

 

 Well, if someone was keeping Erin somewhere against her will, that person would be Holtz’s arch nemesis. But how do you hate someone’s guts you’ve never met? Someone you’re not even completely sure exists, someone you know close to nothing about? Actually, if they were threatening the woman she loved… It was suddenly very, very easy to hate them.

 

 At that particular thought she nearly fell asleep, gratefully slipping into a peacefully dreamless slumber. She didn’t want to think about what would come with tomorrow or if there was any hope left at all or if her universe was permanently distorted or…

 

 She didn’t want to think about it. So she just didn’t. Instead she thought about seeing Erin again for the first time. There were no words. She just smiled. And Erin smiled back.

 

  _Erin smiled back._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am the Feedback Vampire, please make my soul feel good, I've been so tired and kind of insecure


	20. Rubeus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news first
> 
> All the chapters of part one of this series are written and I'll be posting daily for the following three or four days (unless I get a bit over-excited, speed edit them all and post them all in one go tomorrow). 20-24 are all a bit longer than the usual. 
> 
> Alright, the negatives
> 
> I continue to have shit self-esteem so comments continue to be appreciated beyond life and death, I cannot stress enough how much they make my day. So please leave them,  
> I'm also really sorry for the uber slow updates- life has been busy as always

“I’ll bargain,” Erin spoke as soon as the woman she recognized just by her steps walked through the door to her cell.

 

 “Bargain? Darling, I’m afraid you’re left with quite a take it or leave it deal,” M said, a small smile on her lips, voice only slightly spiked with sarcasm, as if she was trying really hard to sound sadistic yet failing with each word. Erin refused to believe it, the woman sounded almost sympathetic. Was that even possible?

 

  _When someone has the upper hand, break it_. Erin thought to herself, a wry smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

 

 “Well, then I’m changing the rules. You need something from me, clearly. You see, the problem with taking everything from someone is that you have nothing left to threaten with. I agree to answer _half_ of the questions, _after_ I see the sunlight. As you said, _dear_ , take it or leave it.”

 

 M grunted.

 

 “Fine,” she said, to Erin’s complete surprise. She hadn’t expected such an easy surrender.

 

 The woman dragged a pair of handcuffs off her belt that Erin hadn’t noticed before. When she spotted how the physicist’s eyes had widened M couldn’t help but smirk. “What, you thought we’d let you go that easy? Oh no, darling, I’m not making your life that simple.”

 

 She cuffed her hands and sent a considering look to her feet, smiling in a _be right back_ way a moment later. She left and returned shortly with a pair of leg irons that unsurprisingly fit around Erin’s legs without any effort; she was getting thinner and thinner day by day.

 

 “Best diet I’ve ever been on,” Erin remarked, the spite in her voice fading slowly as the spark inside of her was on the verge of going out completely. Perhaps it was already gone and all that was left was a cloud of smoke.

 

 M didn’t laugh but the right corner of her mouth twisted upwards slightly, something bittersweet echoing through the motion. She gripped Erin by the elbow and lifted her up. The physicist was surprised to find the woman’s nails weren’t digging into her skin for once and she was only slightly cutting off her circulation with her grip.

 

 They left the cell, M leading and Erin trailing behind, dragging her feet. A part of her tried to pay attention to their path but quite frankly, she was too tired and had given up much too long ago. The doors she saw were all identical and she was certain if they were confident enough to allow her outside they knew how to keep her from knowing the way out.

 

 M pushed open one of the indistinguishable doors and for a second Erin was convinced she’d just allowed herself to be dragged into another torture chamber. This room, if you could even call it that, did not seem like one of the carefully constructed ones she’d been held in. It was empty and barely 4x3 meters, three walls of carelessly stacked large white bricks and one of literal dirt. The physicist was far too smart to trust the ceiling, it looked ready to crumble and collapse in on them that exact moment. Alas, it didn’t.

 

 Instead M had somehow unlocked the heavy circular lid and was now pushing it open.

 

 The first sunrays that hit Erin’s face were poison; the ones that followed were the antidote. The warmth was unfamiliar at first and then it hugged her like it was home and she’d returned from war. She sucked her lungs full of fresh air and heard the woman next to her taking deeper breaths than usual, too.

 

 “May I have a moment? Alone?” Erin asked, quite certain the answer would be an immediate no. Instead, as if expecting the question, M shrugged, freed one of her arms and locked the cuff around the metal arc attached to the lid she’d allowed to drop to the ground just a few moments ago. Erin sat down without further questions, resisting the urge to say thank you.

 

 M seemingly walked away though Erin was certain she was still watching her from somewhere. She didn’t care. This was enough. She wasn’t free, not even close, but she could breathe and for now that was enough. It wasn’t the worst place to die, she decided. Definitely not the worst.

 

 She could swear those were tire tracks on the sides of the lid they’d emerged from and wondered who on Earth would think to come here.

 

 Here there was a chance someone would hear her if she were to scream. And yet it seemed so unlikely she’d much rather not ruin her last lovely moment. If she was going to die she’d go down with honour, she’d decided. Regrets, she already had so many, why create more?

 

 She sat there for hours, simply looking around with soft eyes. Eventually the sky changed from blue to a multitude of pinks and oranges as the sun slowly slipped under the horizon. It was magnificent. Even then she did not stand, didn’t even move. She waited until the stars appeared above her head and tried to locate the Polaris.

 

 She didn’t even realize M was standing behind her before the woman spoke up.

 

 “You’re not going to answer any of the questions, are you?” It might’ve been formatted as a question, sure, but Erin knew it was a statement. She took her last look at Ursa Major, taking her time before answering. The woman was right, they both knew that well.

 

 “No. No, I am not.” She took a deep breath and held it, closing her eyes. She felt the woman grip her by the collar of her almost-shirt and heard the cuff being unlocked. When she felt herself being dragged back underground, though in pain, she could not say she was surprised.

 

 When she finally opened her eyes and saw the genuine glint of rage in the woman’s eyes though, she had to admit it was not what she had expected. It felt so much more personal this time, like the woman was on the verge of tears out of anger. Somehow it was even more terrifying than the monotonic expressions of genuine disinterest were she to live or die and the laughter that sometimes echoed through the cell as Erin screamed in pain. Erin could feel her name written in the woman’s eyes with blood.

 

 For the first time in forever she was scared to die.

 

 She met the cold hard ground, much like she had so many times before. She managed to stumble to her knees before the first wave came down on her, knocking her straight back to the ground, forcing the air out of her lungs. She could feel the strike burning across her back as she fruitlessly tried to crawl even slightly further away before the second hit burned through her body.

 

 For the first time she dared to look behind herself, making out a steel rod, parts of it covered in frost. The last thing she saw before it knocked her back down were the woman’s bare hands wrapped around it.

 

 Its freezing surface felt like live fire as it made contact with Erin’s bare skin. Her last futile effort to suffer less was trying so very hard to cling closer to the ground, finding some comfort in making herself as small as possible. She felt the woman’s strong arms tug her off the ground and throw her against the wall before she felt the rod return.

 

_So this is it. No one can save me now. I never thought I’d die like this._

 The pain rushed through her body again and again, each strike unbearable. When it pulled back her skin burned and itched with the intensity of a million suns. The bright red marks dragging across it were her only witness along with the blood seeping out of her body. If this went on much longer she’d go into shock or die before it, from a broken spine or a broken skull or a broken soul. The thought was not much comfort though, as Erin wasn’t capable of thinking about anything but the pain.

 

 Words had left her mind. All that was left was the sharp throbbing between her temples and a body as good as the ones of those burned for accusations of witchcraft all those years ago or those dismembered, torn apart by four horses. She felt herself joining the centuries upon centuries of suffering innocents.

 

 The light was fading from her sight. As the last blow hit she felt herself fading away from the light. This was death, it had to be because nothing in life could be allowed to be that painful.

 

 She wasn’t given enough time to die properly though as she hears a thud behind her, too weak to look back, too weak to move at all but alive despite everything. She craned her head ever so slightly, enough to see it unfold out of the corner of her eye.

 

 M let the rod drop to the ground. She let herself drop onto her knees, her hands running through her messy curls. For the first time Erin considered if perhaps that hell of a hairstyle was there unintentionally. Sweat poured down the woman’s forehead; a tear slipped out of her shut eye.

 

 “I’m sorry,” She croaked.   
 “I’m sorry, you were never supposed to be a part of this. Fuck. I was never supposed to be a part of this. I’m so bloody sorry.”

 

 All Erin could do was stare as part of her vision was lost to crimson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feeeeeeeeedback vampire, Halloween themed this time


	21. Post Tenebras Lux

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, here it is, next one tomorrow

 She can’t believe it. Everyone else easily does but she cannot believe it in the slightest, it’s just impossible. Jillian Holtzmann… had given up. More importantly, Jillian Holtzmann had given up on finding the love of her life. She was beginning to accept the fact that she was dead and gone beyond the point of no return.

 

 If she could drag her back, she’d do it a heartbeat. But there isn’t anyone left to drag back, that’s impossible.

 

 This Holtzmann is a mere shell of who she used to be. When Erin died it felt like her heart was crumpled like a piece of paper, ripped apart and thrown into the waste bin of space. When Erin died, she’d died with her. As if a black hole had sucked all life out of her but kept her body around out of sheer cruelty. This Holtzmann let people call her Jillian. This Holtzmann lost all the color in her wardrobe. This Holtzmann stopped wearing yellow goggles all together, sensory overload and the whole world be damned.

 

 These days all she really did was staring at walls. The world as a whole was nothing like the clutter of miracles it used to be. Instead it was like watching paint dry wherever she looked.

 

 Yes, Holtzmann had given up and seemed to be the only one incapable of accepting that. She didn’t know who she was letting down but it was definitely someone important.

 

 She came to work every day like clockwork and stayed well past her hours, never actually working. Abby and Patty’s concerned eyes rested on her every other minute. Patty was the only one left actually trying to keep the remaining Ghostbusters alive. Even she was out of it, trying to be cheerful every now and again, feeling guilty as she did.

 

 Abby made no effort to cook for herself but at least she ate when Patricia did. That and when she found herself binging every now and again, trying to eat away the pain. But at least she ate. Holtzmann… didn’t. Sometimes she’d down a bit of soup absentmindedly, that was it.

 

 She’d quit coffee and her irregular sleeping schedule had reversed. Instead of never sleeping enough she was now sleeping far too much, trying her very best not to feel. Sleep provided momentary relief when it was dreamless. When it wasn’t, it made everything a great deal worse. On many nights she woke up crying, shaking, shivering and breathless, in the worst cases screaming. Empty bottles of sleeping pills had begun to clutter on the bedside shelf. The bedside shelf that isn’t hers anymore, because Jillian Holtzmann died with Erin Gilbert, the bedside shelf that belongs to no one.

 

 It’s a rainy day when she walks into the headquarters, as she does every day. Rainy days used to something she adored. She crashes onto her workbench like a puppet left behind by the puppeteer; lets her head fall onto her desk, her hands in the way to soften the blow. Out of the corner of her eye she can see Patty walking towards her, probably with the intention to comfort her. That was the woman’s original intention but she seemed to forget all about it when she picked up one of the photos Holtz still had on her desk.

 

 “What’s this?” Patty asked.     

 “Oh, that’s just some of the photos I took at… the place… I used to go over them a couple of times every day but,” she shook her head, “It’s pointless.”

  
 “No, I mean… This is a game of hangman, on the wall. But it doesn’t make any sense. You’re only supposed to write down each wrong letter once but here you got more than one letter repeated. And you ain’t supposed to use numbers in the answer. This is all wrong.”  
 “I don’t understand.”  
 “Holtzy… You all gon think I’m crazy but this gotta be something.”

 “Patricia Tolan, if this is the cruelest prank you’ve ever tried to play, I’d rather you just punch a dagger through my ribcage this instant,” Holtzmann spoke with caution.

 “I’d never. Holtzy, I’m serious. Look,” the woman pointed to the mistakes in the game and Holtz had to admit they were, indeed, there unless this was another one of her cruel dreams giving her false hope only to wake her up to the cold reality a moment later. She pinched herself just out of caution. Then, when that didn’t feel like enough, she read a few sentences from the first paper she could find. Finally certain this was real she resumed to the photograph.

 

 “Which letters aren’t supposed to be there?” she asked the older woman.

 “All repetitions.”  


 Holtzmann responded by digging out a piece of paper and scribbling them all down in a surprisingly neat row.

 

_A, B, D, E, E, E, E, F, H, H, I, K, L, L, N, O, O, R, S, S, T, T, U, V_

Under that, she wrote the supposed answer to the game.

 

_pg 36 h to w_

Something cracked in Patty’s eyes, like a lightbulb lighting up with sudden hope, an idea. Holtz stared expectantly at the woman, waiting to be let in on the secret.

 

 “I think… I think it’s an anagram,” Patty mumbled.

 

 

  Hours passed, hours spent slaving over pieces of paper armed only with a pencil. They’d gotten the more obvious possible words down in a matter of minutes, if not seconds.

 

_THE, TO, OF, FOR, OR, KILL, IS, BE_

 

 But there were so many letters and so many options. Every now and then one of them would light up a little and write down a new word, then deflate again as she realized they weren’t even half-way to the solution yet, if it existed at all.

 

 Abby came in late, as she did often these days. Holtzmann was not the only one finding comfort in sleep, she was just the only one who wasn’t exactly great at sleeping in. She didn’t pay attention to the two women hunched over a few pieces of paper at first, not before she was pouring herself some coffee and noticed that hint of _life_ in Holtz’s posture, the way her eyes travelled fast across the paper over and over again. It’d been gone ever since she’d given up on that silly old motel.

 

 Dubiously she walked over to investigate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously though, your comments mean the WORLD. Pretend this is like, a blood bank but for vampires and instead of blood you're giving feedback.


	22. Non Desistas, Non Exieris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep my damn promises, keep 'em updates coming

“What’s that?” Abby asked, voice dull, hiding the hope creeping its way into her heart.

“Patty thinks it’s an anagram. I agree. I just don’t know what it’s an anagram _of_ ,” Holtzmann replied without focusing on the words leaving her mouth, too deep in thought.

 

“Oh.” She didn’t dare ask anything else, far too afraid to fall into the grip of hope again only to be met with another dead end. She wasn’t ready to feel that pain all over again. Losing Erin once hurt. Losing her the second time hurt more. Losing her for the third time, supposedly for good, was pain she wouldn’t wish on her worst enemies. But losing her again after that, after allowing herself to hope there was some chance left after all… that was the worst. It crushed her, finally, of all things that was the one to break her apart like hammer to glass. And she could not bear that pain again, not now, not ever.

 

 Despite it all her eyes glazed over the letters involuntarily, her mind working against her will.

 

 “Well, I don’t know what you’re trying to find but one of those words is definitely hounds,” she casually mumbled before walking back to the coffee machine. Part of her knew it was too late already, that with those words she’d sealed her faith to hope and fight once again and probably lose. That didn’t mean she had to believe it yet, or more so, accept it.

 

 Holtzmann checked the letters carefully yet quickly twice, then one more time just to be safe. Yes, the word _hound_ was there, and so was _hounds_. She scribbled it down next to the growing list.

 

  _THE, TO, OF, FOR, OR, KILL, IS, BE, VILE, BAKER, BAKE, LEAD, DOOR, FIND, HELL, VAST, KILLED, DONE_ and finally _HOUND/S_.

 

At this point it was more about finding the words that didn’t overlap with each other, trying to figure out a phrase or a sentence of some sort. If there was one, that is. Part of both Holtzmann and Patricia was sure this was just a silly game of hangman played wrong, that it was silly and stupid to think of it as a clue of any kind.

 

 “The vile baker of hounds?” Patty asked, more from herself than anyone else. She sounded as if she was poking fun at herself for even being silly enough to think this might’ve been something. Something was gnawing at her soul as she stood up and stretched her back though. She’d heard something like that before, something similar yet extremely different.

 

 She froze mid-step, silent as the dead, not even breathing.

 

 “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” she whispered, “The fucking Hound of the fucking Baskervilles!” It all clicked, she could feel it, could see it in Holtz’s eyes.

 

 “That’s Sherlock Holmes, right? Pg 36 h to w. H to W. Holmes to Watson,” the blonde spoke.

 “Page 36,” Patty finished for her.

 

 Without any further words Holtzmann quickly pushed open her laptop and typed _Page 36 Holmes to Watson The Hound of the Baskervilles_ into the Google search bar, clicking the first page that popped up.

 

 There it was, listed third.

 

  ** _“‘The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.’”_** _(p. 36, Holmes, to Watson)_

Holtz felt suddenly blind, as if there was something she was definitely supposed to be seeing, something she should’ve seen long ago, but wasn’t. Patty’s features displayed a similar expression of disgruntlement.

 

 There were times when a photographic memory was somewhat inconvenient. This was not one of those times, however, as Holtz flashed the motel before her eyes again and again, desperately looking for something.

 

 Then it hit her, like a brick, like rainfall to a desert after years of drought, like nothing ever before. Through the glass of the car, the rusty lid she’d parked over moments after that sight.

 

 The only thing she hadn’t investigated in a solid four-mile radius of the damn place. She’d skimmed through everything, nearly died a few times doing so. Except for that fucking lid.

 

 She didn’t dare mention it at first, didn’t dare speak up, didn’t dare to hope again, didn’t dare to get disappointed again, didn’t dare to let everyone down again. Thankfully Patty expressed interest so she did not have to speak unprompted.

 

 “There might’ve been… one… place I never checked,” she mumbled under her breath. She sighed. “Don’t get your hopes up,” she added silently.

 

 

 “Well, we did this almost legally,” Holtzmann spoke.

 “Holtz, you broke into a government website. _Again_.”  
 “That’s why I said almost. We got the fucking plans, didn’t we?” She hadn’t intended her voice to come out so aggressive so she slouched even deeper into her seat after it did. Patty didn’t seem to mind, or perhaps she was simply good at hiding it. The woman simply nodded.

 

 Abby was simply observing it all going on in front of her eyes, still mortified to hope and yet so desperately wanting to. For once there was reason to believe, to hope, to trust her heart. Why did it all have to be so damn difficult?

 

 Holtz’s features displayed well the fact that she hadn’t slept in days, _again_. The one thing grief was good for was getting plenty of rest. Too much, in her case, but rest none the less. And now her sleep was gone again. She’d worked the days and worked the nights until she got to _something_. Because she’d allowed herself to hope again and she wasn’t going to be let down again. No, she loved Erin too much for that.

 

 And yet, despite it all, the possibility was still hovering above all of their heads. This all could’ve been… nothing. Or worse yet, it could’ve been everything, just everything they got to _too late_.

 

 Holtz could see it clearly in her mind, diving ten feet underground just to find the woman she loved down there, already dead. What on the fuck she would do then she did not know. All she knew was that she had the vaguest hint of a clue at her hands for the first time in too long and it was the half-functioning lighter to the candle blown out inside of her- not entirely enough but giving some hope none the less.

 

 Even Abby had to admit the blueprint plans of the underground… building, whatever it was, were quite suspicious. If there wasn’t _something_ down there she would be really fucking disappointed, even if she refused to admit it to herself, or anyone else for that matter.

 

 Abby opened her mouth as if to say something, preparing to ask all the questions gnawing away at her mind, and then closed it again a moment later. _No_. Going against her own best instincts she carefully asked one of them anyway, trying to sound as passive as possible, trying to convince no one but herself.

 

 “So what’s the plan? You gonna go down there all by yourself? Even if there’s nothing –and no one- there… That still sounds like a good way to get yourself killed,” she mumbled.

 

 Holtzmann nodded.

 

 “Yeah, could be a suicide mission. But Abs… Can’t you see? I’m already dead. I’ve got nothing to lose and… And everything… everything to,” she drifted away, getting lost in the computer screen.

 “And she ain’t going alone,” Patty cut in.

 “No, no, I am,” the blonde muttered casually, either depression or deep investment in her thoughts seeping through her voice. It was forming in her mind, coming together piece by piece. Perhaps not a solid plan, no, but something very closely resembling just that. _Examine the facts_ , she told herself. One strange thing she could let pass but three made a pattern and a pattern was suspicious. Holtzmann didn’t believe in coincidences.

 

 So, say Erin was down there. What were the odds she was still alive? One in a million, one in a thousand if she were to believe in luck. Someone had left her a trail of clues to follow so logic would say the same person also took her. Why they’d want Holtz to follow was a mystery on its own though it most definitely seemed like a trap.

 

 How likely was it that just one person was behind all this?

 

 Then it hit her. She might go in for Erin but if the woman was already gone… Could anyone really blame her for seeking vengeance? She went back to her screen. There was a way and she would find it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Need I really say it? You probably already know how much I value all your comments. We had our first snowfall last night so seasonal depression's been trying to bust my ass but I'm not going down without a fight. Lend me a hand with a kind word or two, dears.


	23. Veni, Vidi, Amavi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, babes. One more chapter to go, though I truly and deeply hope you all stick around for the second part in this series   
> (Spoilers for the second part: lots of explanations, lots of recovery, lots of pain but on the plus side, way more gay love happenin', slightly less blood)

Erin wasn’t expecting to wake up. She felt bandages covering a few parts of her body, not relieving the pain in the slightest but at least giving her hope Sasha was still alive somewhere.

 

_“You’re not going to get away with this,” Erin hissed, not looking at the man, not giving him the satisfaction._

_“And what makes you so sure of that? Who’s going to come for you? No one is going to save you, dear Erin. They’re not even looking for you. You really think they ever cared about you?” He asks in the most ridiculing tone and cackles._

_“Of course they didn’t. You’re nothing to them. You’re nothing, you hear me?” His voice rose with the question._

_“I asked if you heard me!” It was a sudden thunder out of nowhere and Erin didn’t dare respond. “Did you fucking hear me? You’re nothing. NOTHING! TELL ME WHAT YOU ARE!” He demanded._

_Erin remained silent._

_He gripped her chin forcefully, the woman wincing in pain under his touch, struggling against the tight grip but far too weak to break free. Anger was boiling clearly in her broken eyes. She pressed her lips tightly together._

_“Tell me what you are!” He let go and moments later his fist made contact with Erin’s cheek. She tasted blood. She refused to speak. He grunted and walked a few steps away from her. Without turning around to face Erin he chuckled once more. Then his expression sobered._

_“Don’t you fucking dare disrespect me. You want to know what’s_ _going to happen to your precious little friends -your precious little Jillian-, when you don’t start talking? I’m going to track her down. Catch her like an animal, like prey, just like you. And I’m going to drag her to you. Then I’m going to take a dull knife and scrape off each and every inch of her skin,” he dragged the sentence out with long pauses._

_“Start from the hands, then the legs. She’ll feel_ everything _. She will beg me to kill her. Going to pray to me just so I’d make it stop. I won’t stop until she bleeds out. And I’m going to make you watch the whole thing. And each and every new strip of skin is going to be your fault. Tell me, Erin, do you want that?” he questioned. Erin wouldn’t answer. It was a terrible day for rain._

_“You’re already a fucking traitor. You know that, right? You’ve betrayed them all before. They hate you. They hate you! Everyone does. You’re nothing. You’re nothing but a filthy traitor! I could kill you right here and now and no one would give half a shit! You’re nothing! TELL ME WHAT YOU ARE!” Another fist, heavier this time, same cheek._

_“I’m… I-” her voice broke._  
 “WHAT ARE YOU?”  
 “I’m nothing.” A faint whisper. Eyes on the ground. Tears on her cheeks.

_“What was that? I can’t hear you. What was that, bitch? C’mon,” he insisted._

_“I’m nothing. Nothing.”  She complied, voice audible now, yet still broken and quiet._

_“Still can’t hear you.” Another fist. Other cheek. More blood._

_“Nothing. I’m nothing!” Erin cried._

He’s right. I’m nothing. Nothing.

_“That’s fucking right! You’re nothing but a traitor. You’re no one. No one will ever miss you.” He concluded before lighting a cigarette and bringing it to his lips once for a long draw. Smoke blew across the room from his mouth and Erin withered under the bud being put out on her bare skin._

 

 Erin shook her head. She was not in the bloody mood for flashbacks right now.

 

 At this point she’d grown used to M. A part of her even missed the woman now that she wasn’t there. She wondered what’d happened to her after the steel rods.

 

 She was broken, both mentally and physically, but, though against her will at this point, alive. Whether that was a positive or a negative she had yet to decide. How that was even possible, she did not know. But, despite it all, she was alive.

 

 When a person walked in and violently dragged her out of her cell it felt like nothing stranger than what getting her coffee every other day at noon used to feel like. These things were natural at this point. The excessive scent of cologne filling the air she breathed led her to believe the person dragging her was J, or whatever his real name was. Erin imagined it was something incredibly normal. The people with the most normal-sounding names were always the ones to turn out to be serial killers.

 

 Another day, another cell she thought as one of the doors was unlocked and opened in front of her.

 

   “Down on the ground!” The woman let herself fall to her knees. She didn’t even wince as the heavy foot made contact with her back.   
 “And stay down.” The cloth was pulled from her head and Erin slowly lifted her face. Her sky blue eyes looked grey in this lighting. They were dull. Empty. She sucked in a deep breath of air and swallowed, hard.

 “Holtzmann…” Her eyes widened.  
 “Erin,” Jillian breathed.

 

 “Out of everyone in the world who could’ve found me, it had to be you.” Erin looked down again. Holtzmann shrugged at that, unsure what to say.

 “Holtzmann… Why are you here?” Her eyes glistened with question. The blonde took a while to answer. Her eyes searched around the room for the proper answer.

 “Couldn’t live without you, I guess.”

 “So you will die with me,” she closed her eyes bitterly “you should not have come.”   
 “Erin…” She was cut off before she could finish by a hushed voice, a defeated tone to it.

 “I did not ask for anyone to put themselves in harm’s way because of me.” Once she rolled her head back a bit more, the intense light now cascading onto her face, Holtzmann could see for the first time how bruised her face was. Blood had dried on her skin, hair in messy curls, dirty. Lips more chapped than ever, a bright red slash trailing right across her lower lip. The rest of her was covered by ripped and dirty fabric, more fit for potato sacks than human clothes. In some places they were sticking to Erin’s skin, soaked and red. It damn near physically hurt to see her like this.

 

 Erin coughed, breaking the silence. It sounded rough, though the metallic taste in Erin’s mouth was something Holtzmann was blissfully unaware of.

 “Listen. You will tell them what they want to hear. And you will try to save yourself. I am…” She glided her tongue over her lips, searching for a proper spot on the floor to look at, and nodded. “I am ready to die.”

 “Erin, no.”  
 “I am not asking, Jillian.”  


 “One of you will give us the answers to our questions. The other one will die. You have 10 minutes to decide,” a rough male voice echoed across the room before his footsteps filled the space as he left, the door closing after him with a thud.

 

 “You should’ve forgotten about me. Now you tell them everything they want to hear and you try to save yourself. I am ready to die.”

 Holtzmann  looked at her in disbelief. This wasn’t Erin. Erin was a fighter.

 “You should have let me go,” Erin croaked.

 “Look, tried, couldn’t. Now’s not the time,“ Holtzmann mumbled.

 “What do you mean now is not the time? When exactly is it the bloody time then because-” Holtzmann cut her off before she could finish.

 “When we get out of here,” she simply said.

 “Out of here? But that would… that would entail a plan.”  
 “That it would,” Holtzmann nodded.

 “Jillian… Are you saying you have a… plan?”

 The engineer nodded once more. “I’m here to save you.”

 

 They weren’t given any more time to catch up as the familiar male figure walked back in with heavy footsteps.

 

 “Have you made up your mind?”  
 “Yes,” Erin said without hesitation, “yes, she’ll tell you what you need. I am beyond saving. You get out of here, you tell them what they want, whatever it is, and then you run for your life, you hear me?”

 

 The blonde’s eyes shot wide open and her mouth fell open as if to say something but she didn’t get the chance to do so as the man nodded and dragged Erin back out of the cell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your comments warm my heart in this cold Estonian weather
> 
> I know I'm Estonian and practically a vampire so I should be biologically programmed to stand the cold (and I am, haven't caught a cold since the cold winter of '97, I refuse to wear hats before it's at least minus 20 degrees Celsius outside) but my brain tends to disagree lol
> 
> Feed the feedbok vomp!


	24. Non Est Finis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT IS HERE

Her eyes opened to an arrogant laughter, one that sounded familiar yet unfathomably strange, like a beloved song played entirely in the wrong key. The source of it remained unknown to her for a bare minimum of seconds but once she’d seen it, there was no going back.

 

 “What are you doing here? You’ll… you’ll get caught, you need to hide before they catch you!” she yelled in desperation.

 “Oh, foolish, foolish Erin… Did you really fall for that little act?”  
 “What act? Sasha, what is going on? Why are you here? And why am I here, I’m supposed to be dead right now.” The younger woman gestured towards Erin’s right with her head. The confused physicist looked in the direction, though carefully, as if she was afraid she might break something with a bare movement.

 

 Erin could now see that there was another chair in the room, with another person tied to it, though she had not woken yet. It was Holtzmann. She struggled against the ropes that were holding her but it was futile.

 

 “Why is she here?”

 “Oh Erin, dear, so eager to know everything,” Sasha made sure to stretch out every word as much as possible. As she approached Erin noticed she looked rather different. Her hair was darker now, nearly black. Her attire, too, had changed. It was much less oversized sweater and much more formal and revealing.

 

 She placed one hand on each side of the chair the physicist had found herself tied to, leaning in uncomfortably close, the look in her eyes almost sultry, sickly so.

 

 “Well, if you must,” she continued “I presume you haven’t figured it out on your own yet. For a Professor you really are an idiot. See, blondie here was s’posed to tell us all we wanted. But she just had to play stubborn. So, seeing how I didn’t work well enough as a bait, I’m almost offended by the way, we decided to use her instead. After all, she so generously offered herself up to us on her ever so heroic, doomed to fail, quest to save you.” She faux pouted her lips and gently brushed the back of her hand over Erin’s chin, somehow laughing at her without making a sound, as if to say _it’s cute that you tried, like wild animals trying to run from a forest fire, not realizing they’re already burning._

  
 “You were… bait?” _Of course, how did I not see it?_

  
 “Honestly, dear, how did you not figure it out? It was so obvious, we thought it’d never work. Guess we just overestimated your intelligence.” She cackled vociferously before leaving Erin behind and walking over to the engineer.  “Now if our guest here would be nice enough to wake up,” she snapped her fingers repeatedly in front of Holtz’s eyes, then gave up and slapped her instead, “then we could get started. Well, good morning, sleepy head! Erin and I were just catching up here, how lovely of you to join us.”

 

 “Erin… are you okay?” Holtzmann groaned, her eyes still not fully open, lifting her head.

 “Oh, I’m just fine and dandy. Why didn’t you tell them what they wanted? You could’ve gotten out of here.” Erin refused to even look at the engineer.

 “Then what would’ve been the point of getting in in the first place? I came here to get you, Erin, and I’m not leaving without you.” Holtzmann wiggled her hands but they were tied too tightly to the chair to move any more than a few inches.

 

 “Look, you son of a bitch, if you want me dead, kill me. In fact, do whatever the fuck you want to me. But lay a finger on her and I will fucking gut your ass.” Erin realized how big of a mistake she’d made as soon as the words had left her mouth. _To win a trade always act disinterested_ her father’s words came back to her.

 

 “That’s not how anatomy works, silly.” The following giggle sounded much more like the Sasha Erin remembered. She pushed the memory far back in her mind but then again she was so used to doing that to everything that made her feel anything it was more of a reflex than an acknowledged action.

 

 “Sasha, why are you doing this?” Erin bit back the bitter taste of betrayal creeping up her tongue.  
 “Oh, me? Yeah, no, that’s not my name. No one’s ever called me that. Some call me Zero.  Suits better, don’t you think? Of course the chick _you_ knew would make a great Sasha. Gotta say, made up one hell of a backstory for her. Was a fun listen, wasn’t it? Anyways, we better get moving, I don’t fancy waiting, neither does my partner.”   
 “Your partner?” It was less of a question and much more an accusation.

 “Oh, yes. We’re quite the team. You could even call it a family business.”

 

 She shook her head as if shaking off the distracting questions and walked over to Holtzmann, grabbing the woman’s face as Erin remembered M doing to her. Erin didn’t think she’d ever seen Holtzmann terrified before. The engineer always seemed to keep her cool, even when they all managed to almost die at the hands of the paranormal. Yet now she looked mortified. Erin’s skin crawled at the sight.

 

 Sasha, _or… whoever_ dragged a knife off her belt. She laid it flat on Jillian’s neck, sharp edge up, and sent a particularly unsettling wink Erin’s way. The physicist glared at her with pure, boiling anger. A certain itch was burning her fingertips.

 

 Her hands burned as she pulled them free from the restraints. Somewhere at the back of her mind lays a thought, waiting, of the several layers of skin she had just severely damaged if not scraped off completely.

 

 She doesn’t care.

 

 The knife is beginning to glisten crimson as part of the blood flowing over it refuses to drop to the ground, into the red puddle starting to form just at Holtzmann’s feet. She makes a point to get the knife away from Jillian first, even if it means slicing up her own palm in the process.

 

 She doesn’t care.

 

 Blood dripping from her arm, she stands in front of Holtzmann. She’s weak. She’s tired. She’s in pain.

 

 She doesn’t care.

 

 The girl is tackled to the ground, Erin forcing the sharp blade further away from them as they violently roll in a battle for dominance. ´´Sasha´´ is surprisingly strong despite her slender and petite figure but so is Erin, though malnourished and beaten she is fierce. The adrenaline is giving her just enough strength and she couldn’t care less if this was her last battle. _I might die. I’ll protect her. One of us leaves this hell alive._

_Do it for her._

 The knife is in her possession now, herself straddling the younger woman, pinning her to the ground with the little strength she has left.

 

 It feels almost surreal, the knife moving in a repetitive motion, up and down, up and down again, into flesh and out, her hands now coated with red. This isn’t supposed to go so smoothly, the blade isn’t supposed to penetrate skin so softly, dig into guts so easily. Gurgling noises emerge from the woman’s neck.

 

 Erin’s cries are muffled now.

 

 “I. Trusted. You. I. Trusted! You!” With each word the knife goes down once again until the words stop and Erin lets herself go limp, falling on top of the now no longer breathing woman, tears streaming down her face almost as hot as the blood coating what feels like every single inch of her skin, soaking the fabric of her clothes, surrounding her in an endless guilt.

 

 After minutes of struggling while Erin lays limp Holtz finally manages to free her hands. She runs over to the physicist and lifts her from the ground, throwing one of Erin’s arms over her shoulders.

 

 She only realizes she doesn’t actually have a way out once they have taken the few steps towards the door. Gently, she puts Erin down again and with a pained expression searches the woman’s now dead body. If she doesn’t find anything resembling a key this will all be for nothing.

 

 Thankfully she does end up locating a key card-type object that seems to react with the door. Whether or not this will set off alarms, whether or not they’ve been watched this whole time, she does not know. All she can do at this point is hope for the best as she finally lifts the physicist up again.

 

 Blood dripping to the ground, Erin was practically limp on her shoulder and yet Holtzmann kept going. Erin’s legs dragged after her, a rare failed attempt at a step here and there. Consciousness had become non-consistent. In and out, she drifted like a boat at the mercy of the merciless waves of an ocean, ones once cruel and once gentle, forgiving.

 The weight of her body was at an alarmingly low level, practically nothing left but skin and bones and barely even that. Her eyelids shuddered at every light and every sound. An occasional pained whimper pierced Holtzmann’s ears and along with them, her bones, her body, her entire being.

 She’d experienced the pain of being in love before but never yet had she experienced it in such a form, a storm of emotion taking over. She wanted to cry and scream and kick and punch anyone that had ever dared to lay a hand on Erin. Yet she kept going. Without a sound, she carried her through the empty halls, greeted by the light of day, finally. Erin had fully lost consciousness at this point. Jillian felt like she was going to pass out herself but didn’t, refused to. Giving up was not an option. Resting was not an option until Erin was safe and sound. It never had been.

The system of doors and alleyways is long and confusing. At some points she’s certain it’s hopeless, that they’re never going to make it out. Their opponents could have countless trained soldiers just waiting. Then again, if they had an army the prime time to make use of it had kind of already passed.

 

 She doesn’t even believe it when she drops to the ground, out in the fresh air again. Doesn’t believe she’s made it out. Doesn’t believe they’re both alive. This could still be some excruciatingly cruel dream.

 

 It’s already dark outside, different blinking lights of red and blue light up her world. It all gets quite blurry eventually.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It’s been two whole days since the world almost ended for Holtz. She’s finally cleared from the hospital, luckily without any major injuries or lasting damage. Most importantly, she’s sure to live. They’re not so sure about Erin though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so are cliffhangers technically evil? Yes. Did I put one at the end of this anyways to bait you into reading the sequel? You damn well bet I did.

**Author's Note:**

> I do hope you enjoyed and will keep reading, it will get more intense as we move along and also more graphic. There will be some chapters following Jillian's point of view (written in third person as always, of course) though I believe most will follow poor Erin's sufferings
> 
> I still do hope for your comments and kudos, my heart jumps every time, yes, every single time I find something in my inbox
> 
> Along side this I will keep writing my much fluffier and sweeter and comedic fic (Video diary) and there will be two requested fics, both also quite fluffy and funny (Foot In Mouth Syndrome & Bets), they will be up soon, unfortunately I seem to be unable to find the third request but if the requester happens to see this note please do let me know, I'd still love to write it, things simply get lost sometimes, in my real and online world of chaos
> 
> Okay, much love to all of you and thank you so much for reading my stuff and putting up with my shitty author's notes


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